


The Long Return

by ChirpingEmu



Category: Glee
Genre: Cop!Finn, Cop!Puck, Crimes & Criminals, F/M, Family, M/M, PTSD, Psychological Torture, Serial Killers, occasional humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChirpingEmu/pseuds/ChirpingEmu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>GAM Prompt: Cop Noah Puckerman moves to Lima, Ohio and gets paired with bumbling officer Finn Hudson. They both get involved in the investigation of a murder (or a string of murders), during which Puck meets Finn's stepbrother, Kurt, who suffers from past trauma.</p>
<p>His high school boyfriend, Blaine Anderson, was murdered by a vicious serial killer in front of him, in a way designed to cause maximum psychological trauma, and he's spent the past five years trying to recover. He still lives with Burt and Carole and occasionally helps out at the shop, but every time it seems like he might be getting better, he gets knocked back down by recurring bouts of depression and anxiety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Oh, boy, they're partnering you with Hudson." Officer Collins looked over the edge of her glasses at Noah Puckerman.

He shot her a suspicious glance, not sure if she was winding him up again or if this was a real warning. Because he was from Chicago and served in New York and LA, they tended to pick on him as the big city boy. He could take it and give back as good as he got, but he was never quite sure which direction Collins was heading whenever she got into his space and started talking.

"He's quite the legend of Ohio law enforcement, wouldn't you say?" She looked around the room and got groans and nods. "Imagine a cross between Officer Friendly, Inspector Clouseau, the Empire State Building, and a large, friendly Newfoundland/Great Dane hybrid. That's Finn Hudson for you."

"He climbed a tree to retrieve a kitten. Brought the entire tree down." Puck turned to look at Officer Schmidt, who threw his hands up. "True story, I swear! It's even on YouTube."

"He was chasing a purse snatcher and vaulted over a little old lady rather than run into her. Did great on the leap, cleared her by a few inches. Screwed up the landing and broke his tailbone." Elms scooted her chair out of her cubicle to lean back and look at him upside down, the way she did so often he wondered if she were part owl. "They caught the perp, though, since he stopped to look and then was helpless laughing."

"They say that during his first interrogation, he asked, 'Did you do it?' The suspect said no, of course, so then Hudson leaned over, narrowing his eyes, doing the big bad cop look, and asked, 'Cross your heart?'" That was Officer Castillo's contribution.

Puck scoffed. "Either you're making this up or he's related to somebody."

"Neither, actually." Collins looked over the edge of her glasses again and Noah added another image to his mental collection of sexy teacher fantasies. Sure, she was a bit older, but he liked older women. And women his age. And (slightly) younger women. And men his age. And older. And slightly younger. Hey, sometimes sex sharks are omnivorous. "In his own way, he's a success at preventing and solving. He's got a kind of naive charisma and he can bond with almost anybody. Hell, one woman he put behind bars in maximum security sends him birthday cards each year. And not the letter bomb type. So don't underestimate him." He nodded, thoughtfully. Hudson sounded like the prototypical small town cop and the kind of small town that spawned people like him sounded like the best place to raise his kid sister.

Even with occasionally accepting a bribe, he couldn't afford the kind of house and yard and extras that he wanted to give Sarah, not in a big city, not on a single cop's salary. So he applied for a temporary position in Columbus, Ohio, the first available one in the Midwest, and continued job hunting there until he got a call from Lima. He was just finishing his last two days in Columbus. As long as Sarah was happy, he could put up with the inevitable boredom. Because what could happen in Lima, Ohio?

Castillo followed Puck out into the corridor.

"What's wrong, man, couldn't resist one last ogle at my ass?"

"How do you always guess these things so perfectly? I dream about your ass, I wrote poetry to it, I want to add it to Mount Rushmore, oh, wait, no, that's not your ass, that's Jennifer Lopez. I bet you get confused for her all the time." Castillo stopped smirking. "There's more to Hudson's story than you heard back there. I didn't want you to get off on the wrong foot with him, figured you'd better know why he became a cop."

"I'm guessing he thought the uniform was cool."

"Well, maybe that was part of it," Castillo flashed a grin and then sobered again. "Even when you were off in the great big city, I bet you heard about the Happy Hearts Killer?"

"Who hasn't?" Six murders over six months five years ago. A killer who kidnapped couples, killing one, letting the other go. It had never been solved.

"Well, there's been a lot of reality television since then. Hudson's brother's boyfriend was the third victim. The mind games were really sick that time, I forget the details, but he, I mean the brother, he was the one who technically killed his own boyfriend. Just a high school senior."

Puck whistled, softly. "Poor bastard."

Castillo nodded. "You got that right. Complete nervous breakdown, or whatever the fancy psychiatrist term is. Hudson went to community college, got a two-year degree in criminal justice, became a cop." He shrugged. "Don't remember more details than that, but you can look up the case file for what happened to his brother. The details never made it into the paper, for that whole 'weed out the crazy confessions' thing." He shrugged again, the way he did any time he did somebody a favor. "Just don't you putting a foot wrong."

"Thanks for the heads up." He went on with a casual wave but made a mental note to look up the case.

He swung by the drive-in and picked up the usual, two medium chocolate milkshakes, and then to Sarah's afterschool program. It was the only one anywhere near their apartment that could accommodate his sometimes unpredictable hours and that had an open space this late in the school year. It was accredited, safe, used a progressive and up-to-date curriculum that complemented the public school curriculum. The teachers, however, were as boring as hell. Sarah objected to having to use her indoors voice out of doors, so to appease her, as well as provide the kind of snack that the school never did, he always grabbed the milkshakes and he and Sarah both made a point of making the loudest and longest straw-slurping noises that they could during the long sign-out process.

"Sarah did very well today in her writing, but-"

"SLURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP."

They both looked innocent as Ms. Quigly glared. "But during art, she insisted on-"

"SLURRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPP."

"On drawing a monkey instead of the horse. She said that was what she saw-"

"SLURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP."

"So, goodnight, Mr. Puckerman."

"It's been lovely chatting with you." He used his most sexy voice and followed it with another loud slurp.

After making a dinner that included as much healthy food as he considered healthy, he called her in and she put down her book. "I rented us an apartment in Lima. It's near a park and school. If we like it in Lima-"

"And they like you."

"We can get a house. A yard of our own, that sort of thing."

"Cool." He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. If she had a boyfriend and some nutjob killed him in front of her, he'd want to skip the whole cop thing and just find the son of a bitch and kill him with his own two hands. Yeah, he could understand Hudson's feelings all right.

\--------

After Sarah was in bed, Puck logged onto the Ohio database of indexed crimes. It was entirely unlawful for him to have the VPN software on his home PC, let alone use the system, but nobody told him that. Or nobody that he listened to.

Filtering by unsolved, open, and serial killer, he found the files. When a serial killer stopped unexpectedly, it usually meant that they were dead or in jail for something else. As he read on, he hoped that of the two choices, this guy was dead. Dead and in hell.

Reading through the bland descriptions, he got a clear picture of the events. The two teens were kidnapped in a parking lot and driven to an abandoned house. The killer tied both boys up and started slowly and systematically beating one of them, Blaine Anderson, while making Kurt Hummel watch. He clicked to the photos and opened a picture of couple together a few weeks before. It was a casual photo that showed that the two of them were crazy about one another. Blaine looked giddy with happiness and Kurt looked like the cat who'd had the cream. He returned to the details.

Blaine had tried to talk Kurt through it, tell him to be strong, that they'd be okay. Until the killer sliced his tongue so he could scream but not talk. The killer kept Kurt watching by saying he'd make it worse for Blaine if he closed his eyes or looked away.

Puck cursed under his breath as he read the next details. The killer broke both of Kurt's arms and he thought it was his turn to be beaten while Blaine had to watch. Instead, Kurt was strapped to a board on the ground, with his arms free. The killer put Blaine on a chair with a noose around his neck and then moved the chair so that Kurt was the one holding it up. When he couldn't hold his arms up any longer, his boyfriend would die. He held out as long as he could, but finally, his arms gave way. The drop wasn't long enough to break Blaine's neck, so instead, he strangled to death, hanging above his boyfriend.

The killer had recorded those final moments and set the video to replay on a loop, so as he left, Kurt would have those sounds in his ears.

The notes laconically said that Kurt was cogent but very distressed during questioning. The usual checks showed that both boys' family members had sound alibis for that night or one or more of the other nights. Kurt's father was running for office and they had received hate mail and threats because of Kurt's undisguised homosexuality, but the first murder was before the campaign began. The father dropped out of the race after the murder to give all his time and attention to his son, but his opponent withdrew immediately after that, saying that she wouldn't stoop to gain from this tragedy. The rest of her speech made her sound like an unstable mix of crazy and compassionate, enough to make Puck wonder briefly about her, but she had an alibi for four of the six murders. The notes added that everybody interviewed said she was fond of Kurt and "in her own way," the notes said, "appeared genuinely distraught."

The previous and subsequent couples had been heterosexual, some married, some not. Blaine and Kurt were the youngest and the oldest couple had been married 12 years. The killer hadn't made any sexual contact or even sexual references to either boy, nor had he in the other cases. The only commonality was that they lived in the Midwest, within 150 miles of the intersection of Interstates 70 and 75 near Dayton, and they were all couples that every single friend and family member described as very happy together.

Noah stared blankly at Sarah's bedroom door after closing the computer. He'd become a cop because Rabbi Ivrahaim had pushed him into it, saying that if Puck didn't make good use of his tendencies he'd make bad use of them and Sarah needed him to do the former.

There had to be something about this Finn Hudson that he derailed whatever other future plans he had to become a cop. Something about him and maybe something about Kurt, too. He remembered the innocent, candid faces, wondered if he'd ever really felt as young as they looked, and fought down the temptation to go get a drink before going to bed. This wasn't the kind of night where one drink could stay one drink.


	2. Chapter 2

The drive to Lima was uneventful. Sarah, used to big city housing, was amazed at how big the houses were and how widely spaced. A two-bedroom apartment here cost less than a quarter of what they'd paid in New York for a tiny one-bedroom with barely enough room in the bedroom for Sarah's twin bed or to let down the Murphy bed in the living room for Puck.

Not that Lima was a quaint picturebook medium-sized town. On the way, Puck made noted potential trouble spots, drawing more from the places that he would have gravitated towards in high school than official training, as well as the more pleasant areas. He pulled up at the apartment building and asked, ″What do you think?″

″The park's right across the street, and there's a pool!″

″Thought you'd like it,″ he smirked and called the building superintendent on his cell. ″We got here early.″ He'd have to get used to small town traffic, too.

″No problem. You got the U-Haul with you?″

″Yeah.″

″Just a minute and I'll be down and open up the utility elevator. Pull into the garage, the elevator's on the right.″

Some things are universal, and the furniture was the usual unimpressive assortment found in every affordable furnished apartment. Still, his guitar, Sarah's stuffed animals and books, and the gaming system made it look familiar and they weren't necessarily going to stay long. Monday, he'd bring Sarah to her new school and finish all of the transfer paperwork, as well as making it clear to everybody concerned that he was going to keep an eye on everything related to her. He'd come to the police station at 10:00.

They'd gone to check out the new school, which looked like any other school, and Sarah was quiet on the way home. She wasn't exactly one to talk about her feelings unless she really wanted to, so he talked about random stuff and sat down with his guitar when they'd finished dinner. She sang along with her favorites, occasionally grimaced at anything ″over the top sappy,″ and that got her over whatever mood she'd been in earlier. Her confidence was still there in the morning and he went to the station with light spirits.

Officer Collins' description made it ridiculously easy to pick out Husdson, plus he could only imagine one of the guys in the station being the subject of those kinds of stories. Sure enough, the fresh-scrubbed, pink-cheeked skyscraper was his new partner, and greeted him with an easy grin. ″I've got to take you to HR for that stuff and then we can go out patrolling, you can get to know Lima.″

″Sounds great.″ They'd completed most of the HR already, especially since Ohio had a decent technology infrastructure for law enforcement. When they took his confirmation fingerprints, he noticed some smudges on the wall that looked like very large finger marks and thought to himself, ″Hudson.″

″It's usually pretty quiet during the day, some shoplifting, people who get their drunk on early, dropouts causing trouble, that sort of thing,″ Finn commented as they got into the patrol car. ″I usually try to hang around the high school before and after. Not enough people there are good enough at stopping trouble.″ His face darkened for a moment and for the first time, he looked to Puck like a man in his twenties instead of a Boy Scout who' gotten a merit badge in growing.

″Anything in particular?″

″Bullying, mostly.″ He looked sideways at Puck. ″I actually did a lot of that in high school, until I learned better.″

″Same here. I didn't turn around until just before I graduated. though. I was lucky that I had somebody who grabbed me by the neck.″ He chuckled. ″Literally.″ Rabbi Ivrahim moved fast for an old guy.

Finn pointed out the spots that Puck had noted as well as a few others that he'd missed. Most of those were off his route from yesterday but two of them he mentally scolded himself for missing. They'd also stopped for coffee and donuts twice. Finn seemed used to the shop owner at both places refusing to take payment and seemed to recognize most of the regulars.

Just as they were pulling into a strip mall for lunch, there was an ominous flapping sound from the right front tire. Puck jumped out to check and sure enough, it was flat. "No problem," Finn said. "We can grab lunch, put on the spare, and stop by my stepdad's garage to get a new one."

When they were at the little formica table waiting for what Finn had promised was really good Jewish deli food, Puck started the conversation with a casual, "So your stepdad owns a garage?" He wanted to hear more about Finn's family, especially Kurt, but was picking up that asking directly wouldn't be a good idea.

"Yeah, it's cool. For a while I thought I'd work there after school, but then I picked this." His face shadowed again briefly. "The station outsourced the motor pool stuff to him since he can do it cheaper and he's not that far from the station."

Puck looked suspiciously at his pastrami sandwich when it arrived. The rye bread looked like somebody had dyed Wonder Bread brown and they'd forgotten the mustard. One bite confirmed the worst. The pastrami tasted like random ends of meat that had been given a quick salt rubdown, not good cuts off the belly that had been lovingly bathed in spices that included salt. Reminding himself that there were sacrifices with leaving New York and LA, he continued eating as Finn started asking questions.

″So why did you want to come to Lima?″

″I'm my kid sister's guardian and I wanted her to grow up someplace smaller than New York, Chicago, where we'd lived before. It was fine when she was smaller but now that she's 10, someplace where we could afford a house and there'd still be something of a local music scene and so on sounded better.″ He fished for his phone, telling himself that it was only so that his new partner would know what she looked like in case he ever ran into her. Otherwise, it was just too grandparent to show people photographs. ″This is Sarah.″

Finn actually grinned at the photo. ″She looks like she's a handful,″ he said, with the kind of admiring tone that made Puck think that he and Hudson might end up bros.

″She's a total badass. All girl, too. I sometimes call her Princess Badass.″

Hudson grinned again. ″I like it. Hey, let's change the tire, get to the garage, then head out to the high school.″

At the garage, Puck waited with the car and Finn emerged a moment later with an older man. Puck noticed that his clothing hung loosely but had the characteristic bulges of having fit somebody larger. It was usually the sign of a trauma or an illness; somebody who had deliberately lost weight usually got new clothes but somebody who had lost weight for other reasons often didn't care or unconsciously found their older clothing comforting. ″Burt, this is my new partner, Noah Puckerman. Noah, this is Burt Hummel, my stepdad.″

″It's a pleasure to meet you, sir.″ Puck noticed his firm grip and direct gaze.

″Good to meet you, Noah. We'll have that tire changed out for you in just a few minutes. Coffee?″

″That'd be great.″ Puck felt more than a twist of envy at the undemonstrative but obvious affection between them. It clearly didn't matter that they were a stepfamily instead of related by blood.

There was a coffee machine with a half-full pot on a battered table in the back. Finn got cream and skim milk out of a refrigerator next to it. Burt took the milk and two packets of stevia, which Puck didn't recognize but guessed was a sweetener, and he and Finn took cream and sugar. The coffee was unexpectedly good, dark, full-bodied, and with exactly the right acidity and bitterness.

″So are you settled in, Noah?″ Burt asked.

″My little sister and I are in Oakfield apartments. It's got a pool and is near the park, so she's in heaven,″ he answered. ″If everything works out, we'll start looking at houses.″

″I just remembered, a high school friend of mine just got her realty license. I can get you her number,″ Finn offered.

″That'd be great.″

He looked around casually and noticed a slender figure sitting at a computer at the other end of the back of the garage. Almost as if he were aware of Puck's gaze, he looked up for an instant, gazed around incuriously, and then returned his attention to the computer. But that moment of seeing his face, even from the distance, was enough for Puck to recognize the boy from the photograph. Kurt Hummel.

He had no idea why he wanted the young man to come over so badly but he did. However, Kurt stayed there at the computer, looking as remote as if he were thousands of feet away and Puck were looking at him through a telescope.

On the way to the school, Puck and Finn had a quick traffic stop for a driver who ran a red light and checked out an abandoned building where one of the boards covering a window had fallen off. Finn wrote up a citation for when they got back to the station.

They pulled into the parking lot behind the high school and Finn led them to a spot where they could get a view of the dumpsters. "They sometimes throw kids in them. I try to get here to keep an eye on things as often as I can." Sure enough, a group of jocks in letter jackets surrounded a smaller kid and Finn and Puck came over.

Puck deliberately stayed in the background and loomed, letting Hudson take the lead. "I warned you about this last time, Michaels," he said firmly to the boy who was clearly the ringleader, as their target scooted off. "Now you've got a choice. Either I go to tell Coach Beiste and tell her what's going on, which means that you'll get kicked off the team for six weeks and have to get straight Bs or better to get back on, or you sign up with Glee Club." Puck was not going to undermine Hudson's authority in the situation by looking like he thought the guy was off his head, but he came close.

"Those Glee losers?" Puck could tell that the kid was blustering so as not to lose face. "Man, I'd rather get kicked off the team."

"Fine, then. Let's go find Coach Beiste and you can tell her that yourself. It'll be good for her to know who's so scared of being laughed at that he'd rather disappoint the rest of the team." The kid opened his mouth and then shut it.

"Come on, man, we need you for the-" One of the other kids started, but Finn cut him off.

"Forget it. He's scared to." He looked over at Puck. "This'll be a chance for you to meet the coach. She turned the team around while I was here. I still remember the first time we won two games in a row." He grinned, remembering.

"Okay, fine! I'll do it," Michaels burst out.

"I'm going to be in touch with Mr. Schue. If you don't take it seriously and try to do your best, it won't count." Finn turned to the other ones. "And you need to stop acting like followers. This was your warning. If I hear of any of you bullying anybody else, same thing goes." He gestured to Puck. "That's Officer Puckerman. He's going to be keeping an eye on you, too." Puck nodded, making it clear that he was memorizing each of their faces. "Now go home."

He turned to Puck after the kids had gone, looking almost sheepish. "I know it sounds weird, but the Glee Club really is something different. It doesn't work for everybody, of course, but does turn some people around. Mr. Schue isn't as perfect as I thought he was when I was in it, but he does care a lot about the kids."

″I've got to know. Coach Beiste, is that her real name?″

″Oh, yeah. At first you think that it's perfect for her, but she's really a sweet lady inside.″ He looked at his watch. ″We've got time, come on in for a minute.″

Inside, a lanky blond woman stopped striding down the hall and stood in front of them. ″How's Porcelain?″ she demanded.

Finn hesitated. ″Doing better than last time.″ She nodded curtly and said, ″I'll call to have him over for dinner,″ then strode off.

″Porcelain?″

″She nicknames everybody. Usually a lot ruder. That's her nickname for my brother. She actually likes him.″

Puck felt like it was time to speak up. ″About your brother, I read about the case. That was some rough shit.″

Finn's face twisted for a moment and then he said, angrily, ″It's like it killed him, too. He and Blaine weren't hurting anybody, but-″ Under the anger, Puck could still see bewilderment. ″Now he's got PTSD and they can't even say if he'll ever get better.″

″A guy in my unit got that. He and his partner got booby-trapped by a drug gang. His partner died but he made it. A lot of it was survivor's guilt.″

″Yeah, Kurt had that. Especially because the way that bastard set things up, Kurt was the one holding Blaine up to keep him from strangling. When he couldn't any more...″ Finn swallowed hard. ″The doctors said that it rewired his brain, that the shock and everything kind of got stuck there. Now he gets depression, panic attacks, he has flashbacks, everything.″ He shook his head, and then looked directly at Puck again. ″Hey, thanks for listening.″

Puck could smell the locker rooms before they turned the corner. A large woman was writing football plays on a whiteboard. Finn knocked on the open door and she turned around.

″Finn Hudson,″ she grinned, and hugged him.

″Hi, Co-uh, Shannon.″ He turned to Puck. ″This is my new partner, Noah Puckerman.″

″It's a pleasure to meet you.″ Her grip was as strong as his and he decided that if this turned into a grip strength test, he might actually lose. It was kind of hot.

″So what brings you here, Finn?″

″I wanted to show Noah around and check out the situation in back. Michaels was hassling another kid, so I made him sign up for Glee.″

She sighed heavily. ″That kid. If you give a goldfish stock options, it'll bite the wolf's nose off.″ To Puck, she sounded like one of the people who talked to themselves on the subway, but Hudson took it in stride.

″How's Jim working out?″

″He's a great little kicker and he's got a good arm, too. He needs to get some muscle on him, still, too easy to knock down. Not enough mass for real momentum.″ Finn grinned and Puck suspected that it was because he recognized the big word. ″Listen, how's your brother?″

″He's a little better, but still...″

″You're a good brother, Hudson.″ Finn looked embarrassed and she looked like she got it because she added, briskly, ″I'll keep an eye on Michaels and make sure his little buddies don't get up to anything.″

″Great, Coa-Shannon. See you around.″

Puck wasn't sure if it was an asshole thing to do or not, but since he wanted to bring the topic up again, said, ″A lot of people care about your brother.″

″Yeah. In school he got picked on and most of the teachers ignored it, but the people who care about him really care. He's that kind of guy.″ He looked at his watch. ″We'd better get back to file that citation and book in.″

″Yeah, I pick Sarah up from afterschool at 5:15 today.″

Finn paused as they got into the car. ″Let me call my mom. Maybe if we bring something, you and Sarah and I can go there for dinner. Mom's a great cook and she and Burt love kids.″

Puck felt ridiculously flattered but told himself that Finn probably invited stray rocks to dinner.

″That'd be great, but only if it's convenient. Sarah gets pretty tired of my cooking. Not that she's great in the kitchen. She gets impatient and turns the heat up on everything.″

″I can make grilled cheese and I can call for pizza like a pro,″ Finn nodded. ″Hi, Mom? My partner's new in town and I was wondering if maybe we could come for dinner, if Kurt's up to it and it wouldn't be trouble for you. It'd be him, me, and his sister. She's ten. We could bring something. Really? That'd be great. Thanks, Mom! See you.″ He grinned at Puck. ″She's excited. She's making her famous enchiladas and she's got enough to make plenty. We just need to pick up some more beer that'd go well with them.″ His face fell. ″I forgot to ask what kind.″

Back at the station, Finn wrote most of the citation, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and then asked Lauren, a big woman sitting across the office, to look it over for him. ″You're a dumbass, Hudson,″ she remarked, casually, as she sat at his desk. ″Occupants is not two words. Nobody needs to know that there were dust bunnies, even if there were a lot of them. And it's not 'me and Noah.'″

″Oh, yeah, you explained that, it's 'Noah and I.'″

″It's 'Officers Hudson and Puckerman,' turdbrain.″

Puck flashed her his most seductive smile and she looked at him balefully. ″In your dreams, Puckerman.″

″Definitely,″ he smiled.

Sarah made it clear that anything would be a change from his cooking and told him that she liked her teacher. Mr. K., the Y sports coach, was pretty good at teaching them field hockey in the afterschool program. Some of the kids in her class were dweebs but others seemed okay.

Puck asked for a recommendation for beer at the store, since his usual criteria for beer were cheap and cold. He rang the bell at the house and immediately recognized the man who opened the door.

″You must be Noah and Sarah,″ he said, in a soft, high voice. ″It's nice to meet you.″ His hand in Puck's felt cool but dry and his eyes were subdued. He greeted Sarah with a handshake when he held hers out, and smiled pleasantly at her as well.

Kurt excused himself to go make the salad. Puck watched him leave, noticing that he had a nice ass, even if he was almost-scary-skinny. Sarah and Burt took to one another immediately and when Carole Hudson came out a minute later, saying that Kurt was making dessert, it wasn't long before Carole was a hit with her, too.

They chatted easily about Lima until Kurt returned to the living room to give a two-minute warning. At Puck's request, Carole directed Sarah to the bathroom to wash her hands and Finn went into the kitchen to see if Kurt needed any help. Puck followed to help carry anything in.

Kurt handed a big bowl of broccoli salad to Finn, saying that it was the one that he liked, the one with pecans. He gave Puck a serving dish of glazed carrots and apple slices, saying that it was a maple syrup glaze that he hoped Sarah would like. His voice was soft, polite, and even tranquil, and Puck tried to place where he'd heard voices like that before. Finn returned and Kurt gave him a small dish of shaved cheeses, mentioning to Puck that they tend to cook low-fat but knew that Finn prefers full-fat. He sounded remote, as if most of his brain was working on something else and so the part that was talking and interacting needed a few more seconds to respond to anything. Puck remembered when he'd heard voices like that before. One was a Buddhist monk who had come up to the patrol car to return an envelope of bearer bonds that he'd found. Puck had Googled him because the name sounded familiar and learned that some considered him a reincarnation of Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of compassion. He spent most of his life intervening in gang disputes and once was shot three times in the chest. When asked in the hospital how he had survived losing six pints of blood, he'd explained that as he was dying, he realized the boy who shot him needed to hear his forgiveness, so he stopped dying.

The others were different. One was a mother who had killed her four children because voices told her it would save the world from hunger and would they mind shooting her, please, and an older man who asked him the way to the World Trade Center. Puck saw his face on television that night: He had a heart attack on the site where his son died on 9/11.

By the time he yanked himself back to the moment, deciding to figure out the connection later, it was time to sit down and eat. The food was delicious and he lavishly complimented Carole, who laughed it off. Sarah even asked how to make the carrot dish and the salad and Kurt promised to send the recipe.

He watched Kurt covertly during the meal. Kurt was definitely not his type. He went for the large and in charge, whether the large was physical or just personality. Sure, underneath the nondescript jeans and long-sleeved charcoal gray t-shirt, Kurt was probably very nicely built and had one hell of a pretty face, but still, not his type. So why couldn't he help looking at him and getting flashes of what it would be like to be kissing him, having sex with him, watching that mouth go down on him? Not cool, he told himself. Not cool to think about sex sharking him. He tried to ignore the other voice that asked why not.

During the conversation, Kurt sat quietly, his face still except when he asked a polite question or answered one. Sometimes his mouth smiled and even remained smiling for a few moments, but that was all. It was as far from the blissfully sleek smile Puck remembered from that first photograph as if he were screaming.

Something of that boy still had to be in there, and Puck decided that he wasn't going to let it be buried forever because of one twisted psychopath. Even if he never got into those pants, it would be his way of sending that killer a solid, Puckerman-style ″Fuck you.″

The only problem was that he remembered what those three people with those same calm, passionless voices had in common. There was nothing that any of them wanted. For the monk, it was because he'd done whatever Buddhists do to stop wanting stuff. For the other two, it was because there was nothing left for them to want. Well, this would be different. He'd find something that Kurt Hummel would want and make him want it. And who knows, maybe that something would be his own sex shark self.

\------------

Finn left the house about a half-hour after his new partner had. When he got to his apartment, he opened up another beer, since he wasn't going to drive anywhere, and put on the basketball game, though he wasn't really paying attention.

It was great that Burt and his mom had liked Sarah so much and seemed to like Noah, too. Noah seemed really cool, even if he did come from New York. Finn had been expecting somebody really different, somebody who would look down on everybody in Lima and complain about how everything was better in New York or even just talk about it all the time. That would have made him think of a lot of things he didn't want to think about, like Rachel. He blinked at how weird it was that even though he was thinking about how good it was not to think about her, there he was, thinking about her. It was weird how women could mess with your brain like that and he wondered if any women ever spent all their time thinking about men. Well, not all of their time, because there's other stuff that you have to think about, but it feels like all the time.

But anyway, Noah was really cool and didn't talk about New York much at all, which was good, since otherwise he wouldn't have wanted to bring him for a family dinner. Kurt didn't get into that NYADA program, which Finn said just showed that they were stupid because all you had to do was listen to Kurt and you'd want him in your program. Rachel was mad that he said that they were stupid on his Facebook wall just when she was putting on her wall that she'd gotten in. They could be stupid about Kurt and smart about her, he tried to explain, but she was still a bit mad.

Rachel said that she was just disappointed that he didn't want to go to New York with her after that, but most of the time when she sent him a message or posted on his wall he thought that she was still kind of mad and kind of rubbing it in. She didn't seem to care much that he was good at being a cop and that he liked it. But then other times she'd say something that was really sweet and so he was confused all over again. But then almost every woman he'd met was confusing, when you got right down to it. Burt even admitted when they were having a guy chat that sometimes his mom confused him.

Guys were easier to understand. Noah cared a lot about his little sister and liked video games and action movies and played the guitar. Easy to understand. Mr. Schue tried hard to help his kids and was confused about women, too, and that was easy to understand. Burt was good with cars and loved his family. Before everything happened, Finn had mostly figured Kurt out, too. It was easy to make him happy then, too. Kurt liked their lady chats and he liked it when they sang together and he liked it when Finn actually paid attention when Kurt talked about fashion or Broadway.

Now it was all opposite, and not funny-opposite like Bizarro Superman, but bad opposite. Then Kurt sometimes pretended that he wasn't smiling because ″how could anybody not tell McQueen from Dior″ even though it was obvious he was still happy about their spending time together. Now Kurt didn't seem interested in anything, not really, and Finn could sometimes get him to smile but couldn't make him happy again. At least the doctors had explained to them how his brain got all messed up and the one Finn especially liked explained that it wasn't because he was weak or that he was being dramatic. It happened to some incredibly brave people and you couldn't ″just get over it″ any more than you could just get over cancer or diabetes.

His phone buzzed and it was a text from Mercedes. ″Just getting home after clinic. How you doing, baby?″ She'd gone to OSU and was getting her master's in music therapy.

″Doing okay, got a new partner, he's cool. Took him to HS today.″

″Did it scare him off?″

″Nah, but Coach Beiste confused him.″

″You don't say. 8-) How's Kurt?″

″Same.″

″Sorry to hear it. Hugs.″ Mercedes was one of the ones who saw how much he was hurting afterward, too. Of course, she was most worried and unhappy about Kurt, but she worried about him, too. ″Making some dinner now. With tots, natch. Love you lots, give K. my love, too.″

″Love you, too.″

″Bye.″


	3. Chapter 3

Puck leaned over Lauren's desk, grinning. 

″You never help me with my reports.″

″Screw you, Puckerman.″ She didn't even look up at him.

″With anything you like, baby.″

″Blowtorch?″

″I always knew you were hot for me.″

She gave him the finger without having once made eye contact.

″Here's the Village Idiot's back. Tell him that he can just say that the shoplifter attempted to assault him and that there aren't extra charges for trying to punch a cop in the balls if you look like a grandmother, no matter how unfair it is. Also that it's creepy for him to refer to the perp putting the camera in a peephole where you can 'totally see everything' in the women's room at the Y. And that it's okay to refer to somebody swiping flowers out of the boxes outside the Baptist Church, he doesn't have to try to name them, especially if he's going to take up 46 characters to try to spell 'chrysanthemum.'″

″He'll be ever grateful, Laur.″

″As long as he keeps ever paying with those cookies.″

The next Sunday, Noah got a call from Finn while he was working out at the gym. ″He's making them! Man, you have got to come over now!″

″What? Who's making what?″

″Kurt's making those cookies. I asked him to and he gave me the shopping list and I got all the stuff and he's making them. You have got to come try them.″

Puck knew one of his dying regrets would be having finished working out and showering first, because when he got over to the Hudmel house (Finn had had to explain the name), the smell of the cookies was like walking into Heaven. Finn was sitting at the kitchen table and Kurt was pulling another tray out of the oven. He looked over at Puck and smiled a quick welcome. Finn's welcome was obscured by a mouth full of cookie but he gestured to the other chair. Kurt smacked Finn's hand away from the newest tray. ″You'll burn your fingers. At least wait until they're cool enough to take off the tray.″

Finn pouted but passed a plate of steaming cookies to Puck, who took a bite and realized what Finn's fuss was about. ″These are awesome, dude, what do you put in them?″

″Only the best chocolate, real rum, and real vanilla. None of that fake extract. I put the vanilla beans in sugar to get the flavor to come out.″ Another smile flickered over his face and Puck wanted to know what was happening. He'd gotten used to a very narrow range of emotions from Kurt and today he seemed to have moved beyond that, to have unfrozen a little. His knowing so much about Kurt from the files and from talks with Finn created an uncomfortable sense of one-sided intimacy with somebody who was behind so many barricades.

″You're the best brother ever,″ Finn exclaimed as he got up to get more milk.

″You're not that bad yourself.″ His brother's remark had actually won another smile from Kurt and Puck couldn't help grinning himself.

″So are these cookies celebrating anything?″ He figured that was a safe way to put it.

″Dad and Carole both got a clean physical, and I promised Dad that he could have a safe number of these.″ Kurt looked sidelong at Finn. ″And inviting the human vacuum cleaner over made sure that there won't be too many left over to tempt him.″

″Plus I promised Lauren cookies if she helped with my reports again this week. If I give her some of these, she'll help for a month.″

Puck decided to make the start of a move. ″I definitely owe you a dinner for these. Maybe tomorrow night, that new Chinese place?″

Before Kurt could answer, Finn interjected, heartily, ″I've heard great things about it. Whaddya say, Kurt, we pick you up once we get off our shift?″

That was interesting, Puck thought ruefully, as Kurt said, quietly, ″Sure,″ taking the cookies off the latest tray out of the oven and putting more batter on the parchment paper. Either Finn was clueless, which was always a possibility, or he was being protective. Puck never would have thought of Finn as mysterious, but right then, he was almost confused as if he were a suspect. But Finn said nothing about it the rest of that day or the next day, Puck shrugged it off to think about later, if he had to.

\-----

Puck was pleasantly surprised by the Chinese restaurant. While there was a regular menu, there was also a specials menu that had the more authentic dishes he'd gotten to love in New York. While Finn was convinced that the menu was a practical joke, Kurt agreed to let Puck order for them both and he selected a seafood soup for Kurt and a Fo Tiao Qiang for himself, a recipe with 20 different major ingredients.

They talked casually about Lima and about some of the characters at the police station. Finn and Kurt both remembered the elementary school Sarah was attending and told a few stories about the teachers there. When the clay pots and Finn's chow mein arrived, Puck's plan had worked; there was almost no overlap between Kurt's dish and his. He asked for Finn's unused chopsticks and every few minutes, he would stir about his dish to find something else to capture between his chopsticks and hold out to Kurt. Since Kurt didn't have a separate plate, it was just as easy for him simply to open his mouth and let Puck feed him the morsel.

Once they were down to just chatting and occasionally nibbling, Puck shared more pictures of Sarah, Sarah last Halloween, Sarah on the Sabbath School outing to the water park, Sarah and her soccer team at the team party, and so on. He'd even thrown a princess theme party for her last birthday but it was all the Badass Princess theme, with temporary tattoos as well as tiaras. ″And of course she's going to be Prom Queen,″ he boasted. ″I won't even have to fix the vote.″

Kurt looked away abruptly and Finn frowned worriedly, then asked, out of the blue, ″So do you have any pets? It sounds like Sarah would be a dog person.″

″Not until we get a place with a yard,″ he answered, almost automatically, while watching Kurt, who seemed as though he'd somehow left the room, even though he was still sitting right there. He must have said something wrong, though he couldn't figure out what it was. He kept talking, since that seemed to be what Finn wanted. ″But then, yeah, she'd love a dog. Something big and friendly, like a Newfoundland or a lab or something like that. Are there any good shelters you know?″

″Yeah, there's one out on West Maple, they're good, that's where we take strays that were obviously pets, when there's room. It's real bad in the summer, everybody wants their dog to have puppies but they don't always make sure they get good homes, and then there are some dog fighting rings, that's a problem, too. But yeah, you could definitely look out there for a dog.″

Kurt swallowed hard and made an obvious effort to come back to the conversation. ″That'll be nice for her,″ he said, almost absently, as if the rest of his mind was still struggling to extricate itself from some other, darker place. Puck noticed that Finn was rubbing his brother's forearm under the table. Kurt continued, sounding more alert, ″A neighbor had a Newfie when I was growing up, I was scared of him when I was little because he kept accidentally knocking me down when he wanted to play, but when I was big enough, it was fun.″

″Mom's allergic so we never had a dog, but some of my friends had dogs so I got to play with them. That was cool,″ Finn followed up. ″Even if one of my friends did trick me into eating kibble. Twice. It wasn't even that bad.″

Puck suspected that Kurt forced the snicker, but it was pretty good. ″I hope you didn't come home and ask Carole to buy you some instead of Doritos.″

″No way, man, Doritos are the best!″

Puck and Finn argued the merits of various junk foods while Finn told occasional stories of how Kurt had been able to come up with some ″pretty decent, for vegetables″ substitutes for Burt, and Kurt occasionally filled in an extra detail.

When Kurt went to the bathroom, Puck leaned over. ″Look, I can tell I said something that upset him.″

″Not your fault, man, you didn't know,″ Finn answered, also leaning forward. ″It was the tiaras, he and Blaine went to Junior Prom. Long story, but...it was a big memory for Kurt and...″

″I feel rotten-″

″You didn't know.″ Finn leaned back again.

″I really want to spend more time with Kurt. I want to know what not to say, you know.″

″Spend more time like?″ Finn's forehead furrowed.

″Like ask him out.″

Finn was still staring and Puck continued. ″Look, I'm not asking for permission, but I need to know that sort of thing, or even if asking him out would be a bad idea.″

Finn looked over his shoulder. ″Damn, he doesn't take as much time in the bathroom as he used to. I'm...we'll talk tomorrow.″

***

Kurt welcomed Finn's arm around his shoulder as they walked to Finn's car. It was warm and solid and supportive and helped him to keep his thoughts away from what he tried not to see again in his mind. Finn hugged him when they were home and stuck his head in to say goodnight and see you soon to his dad and Carole.

By now he knew the routine for when he'd fought off a flashback. Go upstairs to his room and to the neat line of medicine bottles in the top dresser drawer. Open the bottle of anti-anxiety medication and pour out two of the dark red capsules. Taking the pills from home instead of the small pillbox he kept on him meant that he was more in control. Keep telling the thoughts to go away. Work on the cognitive exercises. It was like being in a room where there were wolves outside. There was nothing to make them go away and sometimes they got in no matter what oh, God, the way that any memory of Blaine, his smile, his encouraging voice, turned into the sound of him choking and his discolored face but it kept the howling and the scratch of their claws at the door quieter. He went into the bathroom, poured water, swallowed the pills, and turned to go back downstairs.

He paused at the top of the stairs, not quite ready to tell them all the things that they all tried so much to believe, that he had been able to push back the thoughts before they became the kind of image that led to a flashback, that he had handled things okay.

His family's love was what had kept him alive, he knew. He hated that he wished it hadn't at the same time that he was grateful for it. It was a gift but an obligation, too. He had to keep away those thoughts about dying. He had to stop wishing that he had died instead of Blaine. Those thoughts made him go back to that night and he couldn't do that. More of the exercises, mentally putting himself in a clean, quiet, safe place. Relax each muscle in his neck and let his shoulders go. There was nothing he needed to do with his muscles. Let them all go.

Okay, he could do this. He walked downstairs and into the living room. His dad and Carole were there on the couch. Burt spread out his arm on the back of the couch and Kurt sat next to him. The arm was ready to fold around him and hold him close, nestled into his father's chest if he needed it. Instead, Kurt kept his posture as he said a quick ″I'm okay″ and mentioned a few things about the evening. He was holding himself together.

***

Puck had plenty of time to worry that night. He might have broken the one rule: Do not give your partner any reason to want you to go down. Even in a place like Lima, your partner held your life and reputation in his hands. Giving him a reason to want to let those go, even so unconsciously that he didn't even know that he wasn't running his fastest to get to your side, didn't pull out his weapon when instinct said to, wasn't watching every second to be able to say exactly what you did when a situation went wrong, that wasn't asking for disaster, that was creating the disaster, even if it had a delivery date of ″Sometime.″

A sane person would have kept his mouth shut and categorized Kurt as ″partner's brother, hands off completely″ or if sex had to play a part, ″fantasy material only, hands off everything but your own dick.″ The problem was that even if he could keep his dick happy, his other head kept going back to thoughts of Kurt laughing out loud, of getting that satisfied smile on his face, hell, he even liked the idea of cuddling the guy. 

Well, he'd explain that to Hudson in a censored way, that he liked Kurt a lot, was attracted to him, and he'd back off and never mention it again if it would be a bad idea for Kurt's sake, but that he hoped that he could give it a try.


	4. Chapter 4

Finn's first reaction was to tell Noah that Kurt was still too fragile, that he wasn't ready for dating again, and maybe never would be. It was the last thought that made him draw up short. If he believed that, then it meant that he believed that Kurt was permanently broken and the only thing to do was put him up on a shelf where life would pass him by.

But that wasn't the brother that had come through all those years of high school with his head held high after bullying. It wasn't even the brother who had managed to keep himself together enough to tell the police what had happened before he collapsed physically and emotionally.

He himself liked Puck a lot. If they'd been in school together, he knew that they'd have been bros. He also liked his honesty about how things could have gone either way for him. A lot of cops pretended that they'd always been law-abiding model citizens and Chief Milnes had told him once that those were the ones who tended to beat up suspects or cover up misconduct. The way he talked about Sarah and took care of her was good, too.

Okay, so he talked himself into thinking that Kurt might be okay and Puck deserved a chance.

He made sure to be at the station first and when Puck came in, took him into an unused office. ″Kurt might be ready for somebody else now, but I don't think just asking him right now would be a good idea. So if you're interested, we'll go over to Burt and Mom's more for dinner, the three of us hang around more, that sort of thing, you get to know one another better, so he's really comfortable with you first. Okay?″

″So in other words, chaperoned? Hey, man, if you think that's what'll be best for him, fine with me.″

\-------------------

Finn was definitely not a Broadway song sort of guy, despite Rachel's and Kurt's best efforts during high school, and he didn't figure that Puck would be, either. But that, plus some Beatles and some power ballads were all that were on Kurt's karaoke machine, which Finn dug out of the basement. But he figured that maybe, just maybe, it'd get Kurt singing again. Burt had once said that he'd give almost anything to hear Kurt singing again, and Finn knew what he meant. 

The box was marked in Kurt's precise handwriting and Finn wondered what Kurt had been thinking when he boxed it and put it in the basement. Or maybe Kurt wasn't thinking about it at all, really, the way that he seemed to go through life absolutely numbly. It still gave Finn the creeps sometimes, almost like his brother were possessed. Except it was still all Kurt in there, too. 

He liked that Puck had been cool about taking it slow with Kurt and agreeing to have Finn around. He'd even suggested making it a karaoke night at his place, since Sarah was now in a children's chorus at their temple and really liked it. Finn plugged in the machine to check that it still worked, and it turned on. He scrolled through for a few songs he recognized and there were enough familiar ones that it'd work out okay if he and Puck had to sing much. Finn texted Puck that he'd found the karaoke machine and that it worked. Next time Puck came by, he'd ask Kurt and Finn to come over with the machine.

\-----------------------

Puck loved the Hudmel house, the way it looked and the way it smelled, especially on the nights when Carole and Kurt really got into cooking. They could even make rabbit food taste pretty decent and he nearly always asked for those recipes. The problem was that he wanted Sarah to eat right, and by now she was too sharp to fall for things like it's okay when you're older to eat junk food every night and vegetables once a month. So having ways to make them taste pretty good helped. Not to mention what Carole and Kurt could do with real food. As he and Sarah followed Finn in, he kissed Carole on the cheek, said a respectful hello to Burt, and smiled at Kurt with a quick hand on his shoulder. Sarah got hugs from all of them.

As they ate, Puck said, trying very had to be casual, that Finn had suggested a karaoke night, and what about at his and Sarah's place, if Kurt was interested. He realized he was holding his breath as he watched for Kurt's response and tried not to stare too hard. But Kurt seemed to take it okay and agreed that it could be fun. Puck caught Finn grinning and it felt like they had just high-fived.

\-----------

Three weeks later, Puck and Finn reviewed progress on their to-do list while Lauren reviewed another one of Finn's reports. The next item was for Puck to serenade Kurt with his guitar and ask him out. They'd narrowed the songs down to Spiderbait's ″Fuken Awesome″ (Puck's first thought), the Beatles' "All My Love″ (on second thought), and All For One's ″I Swear″ (Finn's suggestion).

Lauren stomped over and dropped the report in Finn's lap. ″Abby Garson's offering you her lime jello marshmallow cottage cheese surprise is not actually threatening or bribing a police officer, though for once I agree with your confusion. You don't need to mention that you mistakenly tackled a mannequin after the break in at Dunham's Formal Wear and you can just say that the local dog show was without incident instead of saying that because nothing happened, you're detailing which dogs you would have brought home, which ones Puckerman would have brought home, and why yours were cooler.″

She craned her neck to see the list. ″You can sing Fucken Awesome? Good, you can sing it for the theme for my reality show when it comes out. As long as you don't suck, of course.″

\---

Puck finally decided on a less high-pressure song, ″I've Got You Under My Skin,″ Finn made him write it down on the list so it would still be official, and when they'd gotten Kurt over to his apartment to play Mario Kart, he pulled out his guitar and sang to Kurt, while Finn watched him carefully, while pretending not to. Fortunately, Kurt had looked only startled through the song and when Puck asked him on a date, quietly asked Puck to let him think it over.

″I don't want you to end up with a crazy date,″ he laughed nervously.

″Whatever you want, dude, I just want you to know I'm interested if you are.″

He watched as Kurt went to the kitchen and could hear him pouring a glass of water.

″Hey, I think it went pretty well,″ Finn said.

After a few minutes, Kurt came back, looking very awkward, and said, almost in a whisper, ″I'd like to go out with you.″

\-------------

The night of Kurt and Puck's third date, Burt wanted to kiss Puck himself. For their first date, Kurt had only changed his shirt, probably because he'd gotten some motor oil on the sleeve. For the second date, he'd changed from jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt into a button-down shirt and black khakis. But tonight, he'd changed shirts twice and obviously done something more with his hair than run a brush through it. So when Noah came to pick him up and he saw Kurt initiate a kiss that lingered more than just a peck, Burt was ready to get in line.

He and Carole started to watch the newest James Bond movie. His good mood and a Bond movie's usual effect of bringing out their inner teenagers had exactly the effect that he thought it might, and sure enough, by the time the Bond girl showed up, Carole was well on her way to getting his gun out of its holster and he was on his way to handling her secret weapons.

\---

Puck had never taken it this slow before, ever. He was amazed at how little he minded it. First, he knew that if he wanted Kurt, he'd have to do it this way. Second, now that Sarah was more aware of the dynamics of dating and sex, he wanted to model a relationship that built up slowly. He had no issues with one night stands with randoms and if that was something that Sarah would want to do herself, more power to her, but she had to know that it wasn't the only option. Third, the waiting was actually hot. Not as hot as jumping right into bed would have been, but still, it was damn hot. It helped that Kurt was one hell of a kisser—that tongue could probably scramble eggs if he put his mind to it.

Sarah and he liked one another and Kurt was one of the few dates he felt perfectly comfortable bringing home with her around. He also trusted Kurt with her. Once he'd gotten a call to report in just as Kurt came over to watch a movie and Kurt offered, genuinely, to stay there anyway, help her with her homework, and get her to bed ″reasonably near bedtime″ as Sarah put it.

\---

The Sunday after the third date, Kurt asked Finn if he would mind driving him to the Westview cemetery. He had given up driving when he had too many flashbacks and now his medications made him light-headed. Finn gave him a worried look and Kurt answered, ″I didn't think I would have been able to before. Now I think I'm ready.″ Finn broke into a huge smile which he tried to stifle a moment later, but Kurt hugged him to cover the embarrassment.

Finn said that he'd wait outside but would come check on Kurt if he didn't return in an hour. It was a short walk from the gate to the smooth granite stone. Kurt knelt, brushed a few red and yellow leaves away, and put his bouquet of roses next to it.

″I miss you so much, Blaine. I really miss not knowing what we'd have done during all this time, where we'd have gone, everything we'd have sung together.

″I am getting better. It's slow but I know I'm making progress. I know you'd be glad about that. There's even somebody I'm dating, but we're still just getting to know one another. It helps knowing that you'd be the first person to tell me to go for it, that I can still love you with all my heart but start caring about another person and maybe get to loving him, too.

″His name is Noah and he's Finn's partner. He's got a younger sister he's raising. In some ways, he's a lot like you, he's got a big protective streak, but in other ways, you're nothing at all alike.

″Wes and David told me to let them know once I'm ready and the next time they're in town for the holidays or whatever, we can have our own private wake for you.″ He chuckled sadly. ″I was still in the hospital then, but from what they said, the official wake was nothing like you. Nobody sang and nobody laughed or climbed on the furniture in your honor. It was more like people dressing up to talk about your resume. But I think I'm ready now. I'll call them.″

He got up, still facing the stone. ″I love you so much, Blaine Warbler. You were one of the best things ever in my life and I am so grateful to you. Goodbye, Blaine. I'll be back, now that I know I can.″ He crouched again, kissed his fingertips, and pressed them against the stone, then rose and left the cemetery.


	5. Chapter 5

″Dish, white boy, details.″ Mercedes didn't just want details, she wanted to keep hear Kurt talking with some animation in his voice. It wasn't close to what he'd been before but it was better than it had been since Blaine's death. She'd have asked him to read her the phonebook if she'd had to, to keep him talking.

″Well, he's almost as tall as Finn, but he looks more like the felon next door than the boy next door. Muscles on his muscles, close-cropped mohawk, dark hair and really dark eyes. Wait, I've got a photo of him and Finn.″ At his description, Mercedes drew a breath of relief that he wasn't some Blaine clone. Sure, Blaine was a good and loving boyfriend, but this meant that her boy wasn't trying to recreate the past. ″He's his little sister's guardian and you know, with her, he reminds me of dad a little. He's got a protective streak about five miles wide and he's so good with her. Not a pushover, but he's crazy about her and they both know it.″

Mercedes whistled as she looked at the photo. ″And he's red hot.″ She wasn't sure about heading into this territory, but she wanted to hear it from him. ″So how does he make you feel?″

She heard him exhale briefly, but it sounded like he was just thinking. ″Warm. And safe.″ There was a long pause and she was starting to worry, but her baby Kurt sounded thoughtful rather than unhappy as he continued. ″He makes me feel attractive. He's hot and charming and he's interested. But he doesn't make me feel rushed, he's an absolute gentleman with me, even if he'd laugh if he heard me say that.″

″Good, because that means I don't have to sharpen my nails or a knife.″

Kurt chuckled and then sighed again. ″'Cedes, it makes such a difference being with somebody who...who doesn't, who doesn't see me as just...not that my family or you or anybody see me as nothing but damaged, but...it really does feel like I'm on a new footing now. Maybe it's just that before, every time I tried to get back into the world, something...but...he takes me out of myself so easily. It's still...sometimes I wake up and just go through the motions but other times...″ She could hear him swallow hard and draw a shaky breath. ″I...I was able to go say goodbye to Blaine. It hurt, but I got through it.″

″Oh, boo...″

″I still miss him so much and I know I'll always love him, but...I know that he'd be the one telling me that I'm not being disloyal by seeing somebody now, somebody that maybe I'll end up loving.″

″That he would.″ Mercedes always figured that Blaine averaged out as pretty perceptive. There were times when he was downright wise and times when he was so clueless that she wondered how he got out of bed in the morning without hurting himself or her boo, but she could almost see him leaning forward and telling Kurt that if he found somebody he thought he could love, to go for it.

\-------------

″Oh, you're so clever, Officer, I never would have guessed! I was so sure that it was some hideous pervert who was hiding under my porch and going through my trash and looking at me at night!″

Hudson was actually shuffling his feet while he was beaming. ″No perverts, just raccoons. You can even get somebody to trap them and relocate them in the woods or somewhere.″

″Oh, do I have to?″ Mrs. Mulligan looked so disappointed that Puck nearly went to the car to get the tissues. ″The babies are so cute, and...″ She brightened. ″If a real pervert showed up, they wouldn't let him under the porch because that's their spot.″

″Oh, no, you don't have to. But you'll want to keep your garbage cans secured. You can use a bungee cord or buy raccoon-resistant ones. And don't try to feed them, because if they come to expect people to feed them, they can get nasty if they come up to somebody for food and don't get any. But remember to call Animal Control if they start acting weird, they could be sick.″ Officer Hudson grinned through his community education lecture on four-legged masked bad guys.

″Oh, you're so clever,″ she repeated. ″Now you will come in for some coffee, won't you, after you worked so hard? Maybe some cookies, too?″

\-----------

″No, Officer Yeti, you don't have to report that Puckerman is a peanut-butter cookie man while you're chocolate-chip. Raccoons don't sleep in cocoons, even if it sounds like they should, and some day, your girlfriend is going to be mighty disappointed that you don't know that there's a difference between rubies and rabies.″

″I just didn't type that well,″ Finn answered defensively. He was actually sensitive on the girlfriend thing, Puck thought, watching him wince instead of letting 'all that stuff from, like, English class' roll off his back.

″Hey, we better get to the high school,″ Puck intervened. When they arrived well before even the second to last period ended, they went in to supervise the halls.

″It was an accident!″ they heard a voice protesting around one of the corners. ″Ask anybody, I lost my balance. I wouldn't have shoved him.″

″Well, in that case...″ Puck saw Hudson stiffen and stride around the corner and he followed closely. This was going to be good.

A bulky, dough-faced boy was standing opposite Principal Figgins and a much smaller student who was trying to stanch a bloody nose.

″Well, in that case,″ Finn finished the sentence Figgins had started, ″I'll just ask for a few witness statements.″

″Really, Officer Hudson, that isn't necessary, it was an accident and-″ Figgins sounded jittery and Puck decided on more of a good thing.

″Or it might be a case of battery on school grounds.″ Puck joined his partner in looming over the suddenly less assured principal. ″What happened?″ Finn turned to the bleeding student.

″I was just minding my own business and he shoved me. I hit my nose against my locker door.″

″Who saw?″

″Uh, Adrian, and Lee and Monica and Jerry.″

The four that he pointed out looked distinctly uncomfortable. One of them started, hesitantly, ″I didn't really see anything, I mean, I was there, but...″

Whether it was Mafia omerta, the no-snitch code, or intimidation, Puck had had more than enough of it. He took a step closer to them, using his height and bulk to make it clear that while messing with the bully's business was bad, the consequences of not speaking up just might be worse. ″Let's go into the other room and get your official statements.″ He emphasized the word very deliberately. Another of the group cringed and spoke up, ″Uh, it did look, at least from the corner of my eye, that Pete really did shove him.″ Two others nodded.

″So the witnesses are all disputing your account, and so's the victim. Any other thoughts on your statement?″ He continued while Hudson focused on giving the dithering Figgins the hairy eye and writing what looked like intimidatingly long notes.

″Like I said, accident.″ The boy shrugged, smirking.

″It's up to you, Principal Figgins,″ Hudson said. ″If you want to make sure that the school applies an appropriate response, that's fine, or we can proceed with this as a police matter.″

″I, I, I'll see that he is suspended.″

″That'd be good if it's a first offense.″ Finn turned to witnesses, still looking up at Puck with the air of ducklings who wanted to huddle underneath him. ″And you let me know if there's anything that you need to add, right?″ They nodded and scurried.

The encounter didn't exactly cheer Hudson up, but he seemed less sulky as they went past the language offices and stopped at Will's.

″Oh, hi, Finn!″

″Hey, Mr. Schue. How's everything going?″

″Going pretty well. We're ready for sectionals and think we've got a good chance. We're up against Carmel again but our track record is good. How's everything for you?″

″Going good. Mercedes is coming in for the weekend, it'll be good to see her again.″

″Tell her I said hi. You're doing anything special?″

″Going out Saturday, the four of us.″

″A double date?″

Finn actually blushed and Puck had to hide his grin. ″No, not really dating, well, Kurt and Puck are, but not us. I mean, not me and Mercedes, but Puck and I aren't dating either, of course, because-uh, how's Michaels doing?″

″Actually did his first solo for Glee and nailed it. You're one heck of a recruiter, you know?″

″Hey, it worked for me.″ They leaned back and chatted and eventually, Finn's blush faded.

\------------

″Not that I'm objecting, but how come you and Noah don't have plans?″ Kurt had just suggested that he make his famous turkey burgers for lunch that Saturday for him and Burt, since Carole was out and they were both at loose ends. Burt appreciated those burgers since it took only a little imagination to make him believe that they were real burgers, but he had to be sure that Puckerman was treating his boy right.

″Sarah's team's got an away game and Noah's one of the chaperones.″ Kurt snickered. ″I offered to come for moral support and because I've never seen one of their games yet, but really I mostly wanted to see him against about twenty ten-year-old girls. He said that the bus is full but I have my suspicions.″ He laughed easily and Burt grinned.

″Especially since Sarah said that two of the girls have crushes on him.″

″I love seeing the big tough cop get flustered and not know what to say.″ That was Kurt's old cheeky grin and Burt didn't think he'd ever get tired of seeing it after it had been absent for so long. Now, if only he could hear him start singing spontaneously again, he'd be confident that Kurt had truly turned a corner.

They had a quiet, companionable late morning, not saying much but appreciating the company, Burt reading the latest Clive Cussler, Kurt flipping through an interior design magazine. Burt simply didn't get most of the layouts in those magazines, they looked either way too bare or just plain ridiculous, but then, Kurt would look at some of the most boring or weird ones in absolute fascination, so what did he know?

Around noon, Kurt looked up. ″Getting hungry yet? I can have everything ready in about twenty minutes.″

″Yeah, that sounds good.″

Kurt disappeared into the kitchen and Burt could hear him making all those domestic noises, the cabinets and refrigerator opening and closing, water running in the sink, those good sounds of him moving briskly and being busy. Kurt called out, ″About five minutes now,″ and Burt put his book aside, went to wash his hands, and then joined him in the kitchen. As always, there was nothing left for him to do, but he kind of liked watching, the same way that he liked watching a mechanic who really knew what he was doing. No wasted motions, the occasional hesitation while making a decision, but right back to fluid and assured.

As they ate lunch, they chatted about the garage, about maybe switching banks since the current one was cutting back on small business services, and not just with their account. Since they'd been saving for some major equipment expenditures and Burt was insistent on keeping a solid cash reserve of eight months operating expenses, they figured they could get a much better deal elsewhere.

They'd finished eating when Kurt heard the mail hitting the floor. ″I'll go get it.″

The next thing Burt heard was an agonized cry, as if somebody had run a thousand knives into his son. He rushed out to the living room and saw Kurt splayed against the wall as if he'd been thrown into it, his eyes not seeing anything, and his arms held out stiffly as if he were trying to hold something up.

″Kurt! Kurt!″ he yelled, trying to break through. It didn't work, so he did everything he knew that he should do, even if his instinct was to grab Kurt. He turned the stereo system as loud as it could get without being painful, ran to the kitchen and grabbed ice from the freezer, filled the nearest bowl with water and threw most of the ice in that, and ran back to the living room. Kurt was too goddam stiff to shove his face in the water so instead Burt threw it in his face, relieved to hear a loud gasp and see Kurt shiver. He put the rest of the ice down Kurt's shirt and shouted his name again and again, but his son didn't lower his arms or seem to be seeing anything.

Hating to leave him, he returned to the kitchen for more cold water and dragged out the bag of ice they kept in the back of the freezer for just this. Another blast of freezing water in the face and Kurt started to look like he was waking up. Burt started to count out loud, shouting the numbers in his ear, and finally, Kurt shuddered and his arms relaxed. Burt carefully pulled them down and continued counting, now letting himself hold Kurt to help bring him back to the present. His son was absolutely limp and Burt walked him to the sofa, sitting down and holding him, rubbing his back as Kurt started to sob, the way he had the very first time he had emerged from the shock of Blaine's murder.

What the hell did this? he wanted to demand out loud but knew that even thinking about it might throw Kurt back. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the mail scattered on the carpet. It had to have been something in that, since Kurt was long past random flashbacks. He froze almost as stiffly as Kurt when he saw the writing on what looked like the back of an oversized postcard.

__

_″Hi, Kurt!_

_″Hang in there._

_″Love, Blaine.″  
_


	6. Chapter 6

Burt met Puck and Finn at the door. “Is Kurt okay? Where is he?” Finn demanded, lowering his voice at Burt's warning gesture.

“I gave him his sedatives and he fell asleep on the sofa.” Puck noticed the butt dent in the cushion where Burt must have been sitting with him on the long sectional. Kurt was bundled up to his chin in a big cream-colored throw, looking like an exhausted child rather than a young man.

“Where's the postcard?” Puck asked. He had to fight so many impulses, the one to forget about everything else but Kurt, the one to unleash his rage, the one to go out and find somebody, anybody, whose ass he could kick. Thinking like a cop helped.

Burt pointed at it where Kurt had dropped it, and Puck knelt to read it without touching it. He felt sick as he imagined some psycho bastard smirking as he found just the phrasing to tighten the screws on Kurt, how to stick the knife in exactly the right place. When he saw Finn unconsciously adjust his own position so that they were balanced again to be able to control the room, he realized that he'd twisted around as he was getting up to stand between the venomous little thing and Kurt. The realization that they were moving like much more experienced partners—on both sides of the law—broke through his rage again.

“I called Lauren to send an evidence team,” Finn said. “Not that it's likely, but you never know, right?” He was looking at Kurt anxiously and Puck felt a jolt in his stomach when he thought about what he and Burt must be going through; Kurt wasn't the only one who suddenly had to relive ugly memories. “Are you okay?” he asked Burt quietly, and the older man turned to look at him.

“I'm scared to death,” he admitted, equally quietly. “He's got his sights on Kurt again.” He'd turned to look at Kurt again while saying this, but then fixed Puck with a sharp gaze. “You can understand what it's like when it's your kid.”

Puck nodded slowly. He couldn't even imagine what he'd do if some monster hurt Sarah and there was no way he could find the culprit and take him out, let alone if he knew that the culprit were watching Sarah, maybe from a distance, maybe from nearby, and wanted to send her through hell again. He kept the other possibility back in his mind, since he wanted to think that one over by himself.

“Did you tell Mom?” Finn asked, and Burt shook his head.

“She's already on her way back now, so it would only upset her for the drive.”

When the evidence team arrived, Kurt was still asleep, and so Finn picked him up to carry to his bedroom. Puck followed him and adjusted the throw a little in one of those necessary but trivial gestures. Finn looked at his brother for a long, quiet moment, and then his face twisted in anger. “I really thought he was catching a break, you know? I mean, most of high school was hell, but then senior year, he had a boyfriend who was so good for him that I was kinda jealous, and then it all happened, and now, just when things were getting better, he started dating you, he was starting to act like Kurt again, and now it's...” He aimed a kick at a chair but stopped himself just before making contact, and they went back downstairs.

At the station, Lauren brought them up to speed. “I've not heard back from the feebs about whether any other victims heard from this asshole or not, but if they don't get their shit together by tomorrow, I'll call directly and threaten to visit in person. They're gonna keep an eye out, they said, and said they notified the locals. The only really good prints on the card are Kurt's and the carrier, there were a few decent partials but I'm not betting on them being anybody but post office.”

The chief followed up. “Hudson, Puckerman, I'm gonna put you on watch. I want one or both of you with your brother any time he'd be alone in the house or going out alone. It's not quite protocol but Hudson, you know your old house, you know the neighbors and traffic patterns enough to tell if something's not normal.” Finn nodded without speaking. “The FBI and we are both going through any records of perps who might fit the profile and whose lives changed recently. Out of jail, back from out of the country, new marriage or divorce, anything that could mean he suddenly can or suddenly would want to scratch his itch again. They're going to make the call on what to tell the media. We don't want vigilantes who think owning a gun makes them a hero who can tell a perp from a mile away and never misses a shot but we want couples to be cautious. So quiet until then.”

After they were dismissed, Puck went to Lauren. “Just to check, is there anybody right here who maybe wouldn't like my being with Hummel, or maybe doesn't like cops dating gays? Maybe really hates my guts, enough to hurt somebody else to get to me?”

She didn't look surprised, but Finn looked shocked as she answered. “They'd not tell me directly because they know I'd make them eat their own nightstick, but I'll poke around. I've heard a few snickers, yeah, but just the usual stuff they say about boyfriends or girlfriends, no undertones. Yeah, and Hudson, tell Kurt hi or whatever, that I think this sucks, if it'd make him feel better."

"Thanks, Laurie." Turning to Puck, Finn asked, "You really think it could be another cop?"

"If Kurt's the only one who got a message, then yeah, cops are the only ones who know the details, and the only new thing about him that I can tell is that we're seeing each other. So yeah, maybe somebody doesn't like it, decides to try to break things up, or just stir the water." Finn looked so disturbed that Puck hurried to add, "For the record, I don't think so, I think this was all the original perp. But if it was anybody here, nobody's gonna find the body. Promise."

\----

When Carole came home, she was heartbroken and furious to hear what had happened. Her husband looked twenty years older, Finn looked lost and angry, and when Kurt woke up, all of his slow and painful progress might be lost. For a brief and irrational instant, she felt a sudden flash of resentment towards him for bringing so much misery, then reminded herself that it certainly wasn't his fault. But somehow for that moment it felt easier to blame somebody she could put a name and face to, rather than somebody entirely unknown, and angrily hoped that they would at least identify, if not catch, the person who had done all of this.

She was sorry to have missed Noah, who had waited until he felt calm enough to go home to Sarah. He already felt to her like part of the family. 

Kurt was still asleep under the effect of the sedatives. She insisted that the rest of them eat and offered to make grilled cheese and chicken soup. She nearly suggested tomato soup but the mental image of a red soup reminded her too much of how she'd seen an officer wrap Kurt's clothing, covered with Blaine's blood,. The officer had looked so awkward as he said, "Ma'am, we've got to offer you a receipt, but I don't think you'll want them back." She'd just shook her head violently and turned away.

Nobody felt like eating but going through the motions helped. They sat quietly through the news and soon after, she and Burt went up to bed. Finn was going to stay the night, to her relief. She wanted her son there. Maybe that was something that parents never entirely shed during a crisis, the need to see their children with their own eyes, 

She and Burt were both sleeping fitfully. Around midnight, Burt swung his legs around and got out of bed, "Gonna see if he's still sleeping." Wanting to give them some privacy, she waited but strained her ears for the sound of their voices. She didn't hear anything and a few moments later Burt was back in their bedroom. "Still out." He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, slumped with his hands hanging empty. For a moment, she thought he was going to say something, but he just shook his head and got back into bed. She pulled him close, feeling almost as though she was choking on her own love and compassion for him.

They feel into another fitful sleep, but around three, she thought she heard a noise. It woke her fully and she listened intently for a moment, then identified it as coming from downstairs. She grabbed the bat that Burt had silently taken out of the closet and, as an afterthought, her phone from the dresser, and went down, moving quietly.

The sound was coming from the kitchen and was a normal, domestic noise of somebody opening the refrigerator, then the microwave door. She relaxed a little but kept her grip on the bat as she went in. It was Kurt, hair all tufted and tousled. She remembered him once telling Finn, "Everybody gets bed head, but that's no reason to let anybody see it." He turned around and gasped sharply, then sighed as he recognized her. She leaned the bat against the wall and went to hug him. As grey and drawn as he looked, just seeing him up was a relief, as was his returning her hug.

"Warm milk?" she asked, just to say something mundane, and he nodded. He stopped the microwave at two seconds and pulled out his mug.

"Do you want some?"

"Sit down, sweetie, I'll take care of it." She kissed the top of his head as he pulled out a chair and sank down.

Carole could tell that Kurt wanted to say something, but waited patiently as he sat, head lowered. Finally he looked up at her, eyes dry for a moment and then swimming, "I'll have to break up with Noah."

She hesitated, not sure what to say, and he continued, "It..it wouldn't be safe for him." Carole remembered how Kurt had somehow managed to force himself to keep functional long enough to talk to the police after Blaine's death and wondered if he was doing the same thing here, keeping himself functioning beyond endurance. She had to try to steer him away.

"Kurt, don't you want to talk with him first? This will be different," she urged, hoping that what she was saying was true. "Noah's armed, he's going to be on the alert, you'll both be taking precautions. It's not the same situation at all."

Kurt stared into his mug. "But if something does happen to him..." He sounded so hopeless.

"Sweetie, just talk to him first, promise? Maybe you can put things on hold, maybe they'll find it was somebody's sick joke." Hoping she was doing the right thing, she put her hand on his arm and urged, "Wait and talk to him, as a cop and as your boyfriend. Give him a choice, too."

Either she or his exhaustion had worn him down and his eyes were half-closed as he nodded, wearily. "Let's go sit on the couch, okay?" Going back up to his room might not be the right thing now, she knew how surroundings could seem to absorb and reflect thoughts, good or bad. He followed her to the living room and she rested his head on her shoulder, dozing uneasily together until morning.

\----

uck worried all the way home about what to say to Sarah. She was smart enough to figure out that something was going on and despite all her self-confidence, had her sensitive side. Her brother being a cop was starting to mean more than something to brag about at school; she knew that cops and innocent people could get hurt. He was tempted to try to tell her that it was nothing going on, but he also knew that knowing too little was a lot scarier than knowing enough.

"Hey, Princess Badass," he greeted her as he came in. "We gotta talk for a minute."

God, he loved the way that her expression said, "Okay, whatever I'm in trouble for, it was worth it." That was his little sister, all right. "What's up?"

"We don't know how serious it is, it could just be a really ugly joke, but some lowlife threatened to hurt Kurt. Things will be kind of stressed until we figure out who and how to stop them."

She thought about it for a moment and then said, "What an asshole."

"Remember that's a home word, not a school word," he said, automatically and she continued, "Is Kurt going to be okay?"

"We're going to make sure he is. It might be somebody who really wants to hurt him, so I might be working a lot of extra hours and it might be a while before he comes here again or we go there."

She nodded slowly, then looked up at him with her "don't bullshit me" expression. "Are you scared?"

"More concerned than scared." She nodded again, digesting this.

"Okay." She thought for a few more moments, and then said, "You wanna play the guitar and sing?" It wasn't really a question, but he did wonder whether she was saying it for him or herself.

\-----

His first text the next morning was from Lauren. "One more victim got a note. Authentic." When he got in, she was talking to Finn, who had just got in. "Definitely not a cop. The letter mentioned a detail that the victim's wife didn't say in her interviews."

"Anything usable?"Sometimes what a traumatized witness blocked out was major.

"Maybe. Her husband had Beef Wellington that night and the perp sent a recipe. So maybe he was at the restaurant. Or maybe he just went through the doggie bag and guessed right that it was his. We're on the restaurant to get any records like reservations and we're on the credit card companies for numbers of any charges."

"Unless he gave a fake name or didn't make reservations and paid cash."

She shrugged with one shoulder and turned back to work, and Puck turned to Finn. "How's he doing?"

"Not great but he could be worse. A lot worse," he repeated, somberly. "He's in the car with Burt, now. I had to come in and didn't want to leave him, but it's taking him a minute to get ready."

Chief Milnes popped out of her office as if she'd been waiting. "All of you come in here, Burt and Kurt, too, when they're in."

It hurt like hell to see Kurt looking so empty, looking more like "living dead" than any zombie. He wasn't quite leaning on his dad but Puck suspected that if Burt weren't guiding him, he'd simply stop moving and eventually crumple, like a slow-mo of a building collapsing. He wasn't sure what to say beyond a quick, "Hey." Kurt's attempt at a smile was pretty pathetic but he figured he'd better take what it could.

"Right," Chief Milnes began. "We know that this was the original perp. We don't know why now, why Kurt first, or why through the mail. The FBI has a couple of profilers on it and we're waiting to hear. They can do the data things, we've got to do the observation thing." She looked around the room and then leaned forward, looking at Kurt and Burt. "Even having you here is unorthodox and I'm going to go beyond that, based on nothing more than a hunch.

"I think the perp does his thing for control and for a sense of superiority. I think what triggered him and what made Kurt hear from him first is that either he's been watching all along, or he recently started watching. He saw Kurt start to date again, and he didn't like it. Of all the other couples, Kurt's the only one who's started to see somebody, which is why he got the first note, and then the perp decided to yank the other chains, too.

"This is where you can call me callous, crazy, reckless, or whatever else you want. This is the first time we have the perp off balance. It's risky, but if you're willing to take the risk, we make it look like after a few days, the two of you decided to keep seeing one another and get more serious." She held up a hand as Finn and Burt looked ready to explode.

"We'd use a body double. Officer Mallory can be convincing enough from a distance. He's got the build and if we get the hair and coloration right, the clothing shouldn't be-"

"No." They all turned to face Kurt. His voice was shaking but his expression wasn't blank any longer. "If you're right and he figures it out, it...it could get worse. If you're doing this, I'm going to be the one doing it."

"Kurt!" Puck swallowed hard at the love on their faces as Kurt and Burt looked at one another. Kurt answered his father's protest with a tiny smile. "Dad, back in high school, we both knew the kinds of risks I was running, dressing like I did, being myself...that's what this is, all over again. Dad...I've, I've got to do this. After all, nobody can push a Hummel around, right?" The two of them looked at one another for a long moment again, and finally Burt closed his eyes, nodded, and grabbed Kurt's hand, holding it hard.

"All right then. Now to details," Chief Milnes said, and Puck was pretty sure that she was blinking hard, too.

\------

Puck kept his gaze casual as he looked around the park and didn't let his glance rest on the undercover who was walking and complaining into her cell. If he were the one watching for an undercover, though, he'd have picked out the lady talking to the pigeons about betting odds, except that he knew a) she'd been a park regular for years and b) maybe she was onto something, given her record of wins and c) a bit of flattery and flirtation made her generous with the tips, especially from Harold, the brown and white one. The undercover wasn't watching them—even the profilers agreed that a direct attack was against his MO and apparent motivations—but was watching for anybody watching them.

Kurt was clearly working at keeping up a conversation, but then, even if he were able to look bright and cheery, that would have tipped the perp off that something wasn't normal. Puck heard a runner coming up behind them, stepped aside a little to let them pass, and then Kurt and the runner both did a double-take.

"Kurt?"

"Dave? I didn't know you were back in Lima."

"Yeah, for a while. Hey, how're you doing?" Puck saw a lot more intensity in the guy's expression and posture than the conversation seemed to justify. The question, too, definitely wasn't the normal pleasantry that expected an automatic "fine" or equivalent.

Kurt nodded slowly as he picked out his words. "I'm...getting there."

Dave, consciously or not, echoed the nod, but was silent. Either awkward, or a tactic to make Kurt try to fill the silence. In any case, Kurt did so. "Noah, this is Dave Karofsky. Dave, Noah Puckerman. Noah's my boyfriend."

As they shook hands, there were a lot more emotions on this Dave's face than there should have been, before he repeated, "Puckerman...wait, are you Sarah Puckerman's dad?"

"I'm her brother, actually, but I'm also her guardian."

Now Dave was grinning. "I'm her soccer team's coach. She's a great kid and a hoot and a half."

"So you must be Coach. K." Sarah had talked about him a lot, including saying that he'd told them never to use "gay" as an insult, because there are real people, like him, who are gay, and you don't describe the way anybody was born as an insult. Puck hoped he wouldn't have to kick his ass and arrest him.

"Yeah." Now Dave turned his attention more to Kurt, but still addressing both of them. "Mom and Dad got divorced and then he got sick earlier this year. I figured I'd better come back for a while, earn something to start paying off loans, so I'm doing some part-time bookkeeping and part-time youth sports coach until I go back to school."

"How's he doing?"

"It was kidney failure, but he's doing okay on dialysis. He's still kind of weak, though, so I want to stick around, you know?" Kurt nodded, and Dave continued, "How's your dad doing?"

"He's doing well. No more heart problems, knock on wood."

"I've thought about you a lot," Dave said, after a pause. "Hoped you were doing okay. I...I'm glad to see that you're with somebody. Uh, maybe we can catch up sometime?"

"Sure, I'd like that." Kurt smiled faintly and Dave started running again, looking just a little as though he were running to get away. Puck looked at Kurt and said, "There was a lot going on there."

Kurt sighed. "Dave and I have a weird history. First he bullied me for being gay, then it turned out that he was in the closet and started harassing me, including a death threat. He got over that and apologized, and we mostly made our peace with one another. Then he wanted to date me, but I was seeing," Kurt swallowed hard but continued. "He didn't come out of the closet until he was forced out. He called me for help but I thought he was just trying to...get together after I'd said no, and so I didn't answer, and he tried to kill himself. Then we did start talking a lot and I guess became kind of friends. When it all happened, I think he sent a really nice letter, but I don't really remember much."

Puck took a moment to digest this. "Any chance it could be?"

Kurt shook his head. "I'm pretty sure they investigated him. I think I mentioned him when they asked if anybody might be jealous..." He suddenly looked utterly drained and Puck said, "Let's go back to your place." Kurt nodded and Puck held his arm tighter around Kurt's shoulders.

\---------

Puck came to get Kurt for coffee. In the car, Kurt leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. Puck reached over and rested a hand on his leg. “Are you up to this, babe?” Kurt nodded, without opening his eyes, but put his hand on Puck's. “Coffee will help, I'm sure,” he said.

Puck parked about a block away from the Lima Bean and he and Kurt held hands as they walked. Puck scanned the interior, noting a group of high school kids, two women playing chess, a young man with a laptop and a “working on my profound masterpiece” pose, a woman in her thirties who was watching the door with a sour expression, and a man about his own age, wearing pants and a top that screamed money, even to Puck.

This man looked up as he and Kurt walked by and asked, “Kurt? Kurt Hummel?” Kurt frowned faintly scrutinizing him, and the man laughed, “Sebastian. Sebastian Smythe.”

“Oh, of course!” Kurt exclaimed.

“I don't think we ever ran into one another when I wasn't wearing my Dalton uniform,” he chuckled, then sobered. “I did want to get in touch with you after, after Blaine died, but I wasn't sure that you'd want to hear from me. It's not as though I could have said much, anyway, not to somebody who just lost the person who was their entire world.” He shook his head sadly. “There could never be another Blaine.” Kurt looked away and Sebastian turned to Puck. “I'm Sebastian. Blaine and Kurt and I knew one another back when.”

“Noah Puckerman.” This Sebastian guy had a good handshake, but he definitely wasn't Puck's type. “Kurt's boyfriend.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you.” He looked at Kurt again. “Won't you join me once you've ordered? I'd love to catch up.”

Kurt answered, “Sure, why not?” Puck put an arm around his waist as they placed their orders and Kurt leaned slightly into him.

“So who's this Sebastian guy? He seemed a lot happier to run into you than you were to see him.”

Kurt grimaced faintly. “It was complicated. He was a nasty piece of work who told Blaine how much better he could do than me and was always trying to get in his pants. When he finally realized he didn't have a chance, he tried to hit me with a rock salt slushie and Blaine nearly lost an eye when he took it for me. Then when Dave Karofsky was outed and tried to kill himself, Sebastian turned a new leaf. I still didn't take much to him and after everything happened, I never thought of him.” Their drinks were ready and they took them back to Sebastian's table.

“So what have you been doing, Sebastian?”

“I went back to Paris to study law at the Pantheon-Sorbonne, but I got rather ill last term—no, just mono, nothing serious—so my parents wanted me to come back to Ohio until I was fully recovered.” He smiled rather too brilliantly for Puck's taste before leaning forward with a concerned expression. “You? I heard you were in bad shape.”

Kurt said simply, “It's been difficult. But I've been working at my dad's garage and each day it does get better.”

“What's your brother doing now? On his way to stardom in New York?”

“He actually decided to join the police. After what happened.”

Sebastian shook his head pityingly. “Another life broken.”

Sharply, Kurt answered, “You're absolutely wrong. He always liked being a leader and he's good at it. When he saw the police in action he decided that that was something where he could follow in his father's footsteps and make a difference in a very practical way. He does a lot of good and people respect him. In fact, that's how Noah and I met, Noah's his partner.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disparage his choices.” Kurt still looked ruffled but drank his coffee for a few more minutes before looking at his watch. “Noah, shouldn't we go pick up Sarah in a minute?”

Actually, an hour, but Puck take a hint. “We'd better get going. Nice to meet you, Sebastian.”

“Likewise,” he replied.

When they were outside, Kurt said, ruefully. “He can still get under my skin. It was easier to ignore when he was trying to.” He sighed softly.

“Do you want me to drop you off home?”

“Maybe we can go to your place? I want to spend some time just with you. Just...being together. Someplace safe."


	7. Chapter 7

Puck had to be honest with himself. There were a lot of things about dating Kurt Hummel that sucked. There was the obvious, that Kurt wasn't ready to put out yet. Sure, Puck was going along with it but that didn't mean that he had to like it. Then there was Kurt's PTSD. Having been a big-city cop, he'd seen enough people with it to know that it was like having an unpredictable little bomb factory right there in your brain, stuck there for good. He'd seen it in fellow cops and he'd seen it in more than a few of the homeless men and women he'd encountered or criminals that he'd hauled in.

But the thing that ate at him was always wondering if he could stand comparison to Kurt's memories of Blaine. It was a douchebag thing to think, but Anderson had the advantage of being dead. If his feet stank or he belched like a dozen cows after a bean-eating contest or had a rotten temper when he hadn't had much sleep, all of those flaws were gone. He'd seen that on the force, too. It was like memory decided to be a rotten SOB and make it harder to lose somebody you cared about. If memory had any sense of decency, it'd reverse things.

On the other hand, knowing what they'd do when they got to his apartment, that made up for almost all of the self-doubts. It was practically a routine by now. He looked sideways at Kurt, who still looked exhausted, but smiled at him. Puck had asked him if he wanted to go home instead, but Kurt had answered that no, if Puck had time, he'd like to go to his place. Since Sarah was on a predictable schedule, that meant that he wanted to make out.

Once inside, and with a quick check to make sure that Sarah wasn't there, they sat on the couch, and after a little preliminary kissing, Kurt sat on Puck's lap, facing him. This was Puck's favorite, since for whatever reason, it seemed to bring out the mix of sweetness and bossiness that left him besotted with his boyfriend. Kurt leaned forward, kissing him again, intent on just that as though there were nothing else even existing. When he did pull away, eyes still closed, it was to nuzzle into Puck's neck, inhaling deep and mouthing it. After a few moments of this, he opened his eyes again long enough to reach for Puck's shirt and lift it over his head, then do the same with his, before scooting closer so that his bare chest was pressed against Puck's, slipping his hands behind so that he could run them up and down Puck's back. His eyes were still closed as he pulled back slightly to press his cheek and lips to Puck's chest.

The only problem was that not-so-mini Puck was straining to get out and get involved, and starting to promise some serious pain if that didn't happen. He caught Kurt's hands in his and said, “Gotta excuse myself.” In the bathroom, after he cleaned up, he must have looked frustrated because Kurt looked up at him and said, quietly, “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” he answered, automatically, and then decided that he might as well lose, if not both his balls, one ball or maybe half, and talk about it. “Look, I know I'm not him, and-”

“What?” Kurt stared at him as though Puck had said that he was the Loch Ness Monster, and then glared. “Noah, are you suggesting that the reason that I'm not ready to, to be intimate with you is because you're not Blaine?” He got up and glared even more.

“I know that's not the only reason, but, come on, he was, from everything all the interviews say, he was perfect for you.” Kurt's glare was making Puck feel defensive and he added, “Honestly, if he were here now, would you pick him or me?”

Kurt snapped, “That's unfair and ridiculous,” and looked ready to continue this, but then drew a deep breath and sighed. “Look, Noah, he was my first almost everything, my first gay friend, my first boyfriend, my first...that means that he's, that he's always going to have a special place in my heart. But if you think that I just see you as a substitute for Blaine, if you think that the reason I'm not ready to, to become closer to you is because I think you won't live up to him, then you are being incredibly unfair to me and to yourself.” He sighed again, and then, his voice shaking, started to shout. “The reason I can't go as far with you as I want to, as you want to, is that I know it's stupid, but I panic, feeling, feeling that close makes me, and it all starts up again, what it felt like...” He swallowed hard, fighting back tears, and muttered, “Maybe I'd better go.”

“Kurt, wait!” Puck was still processing this and didn't even know what to say, just that there was something important he had to say. In a way, he wished that Kurt were like most of his previous involvements, somewhere between booty-call and fuck buddy. That kept things simple, when the only feeling involved was horniness. This was complicated, dammit. At least Kurt was standing still, looking at him, waiting.

Fine, he'd start with the big one, not only giving up his balls but every claim to masculinity he possessed. “So what do you want from this?” Maybe he still was partly male, since he didn't say “relationship.”

“You're somebody I want to be with. I care about you, I'm attracted to you, and I, I think I'm starting to love you.” His expression, as he looked at Puck, was so open that Puck knew he could believe him. After a moment, though, his expression and voice turned bitter. “But I also know that I'm damaged goods. Not many people would want me, or want to wait for me. So if you can't wait, or can't trust me enough to think that I'm trying with everything I've got to be with you, then the least you can do is tell me now.”

Puck's brain stopped processing anything except that he needed to be holding Kurt, right now. He was just about to try and kiss Kurt when it was Kurt who practically attacked his mouth. Usually Puck rushed for a kiss at an awkward moment to get out of the awkward questions, but this time, it actually felt like he was answering the question that Kurt was asking underneath all those statements. Maybe it even proved that they were still both guys, since when they finally pulled apart, he didn't want to add anything with words, and it looked like Kurt didn't need to, either.

\--------

“Get your asses over here!” Lauren greeted Finn and Noah. The police chief was standing over her shoulder at her desk and when they went over, she pointed at the screen. It didn't take Finn more than a few seconds to recognize the name on the page: Lisa Conrad, another one of the Happy Hearts Killer's living victims. “See this? She's in a relationship and if you look at the timeline, it's been going on for a few months.”

“So why didn't she mention that when the Feds called?” Finn remembered that they'd asked about current relationship status and whether the killer had communicated in any way.

Noah looked bitter for a few seconds when he said, “My guess? Look, he's a janitor, high school dropout. She's a management consultant. A lot of women don't want to admit that they've gone downmarket.”

“So why's it on a public page?”

Lauren shrugged with one shoulder. “Facebook switched the default to public just a few days ago.”

The chief was nodding slowly. “ If we're right that the killer communicated with Kurt because he started dating again and he hasn't done anything to her, that means that it's personal with Kurt.” She wiped a whiteboard clean and stood with a marker. “So what makes Kurt special?”

Finn had that one. “Du-uh. He's my brother.”

“She means to the killer.” That was weird, usually Lauren added “dumbass” or something like that every time she talked to him.

“Well, it might be a factor, that his brother went into law enforcement.” The chief wrote down, “Family in police.”

“He's gay,” Noah added.

“But the killer didn't say anything about that,” Lauren frowned.

“It might still be a factor.” The chief continued, “He and Blaine were the youngest.”

“He can sing.”

“Atheist.”

“Fashionable, or he used to be.”

“He used to stick his nose up at a lot of things.”

“Burt was running for office.”

“Matches a lot of gay stereotypes.” Finn didn't like it that Noah said it, even if it was true. A lot of his own contributes, like “He can whistle breathing in and breathing out” went onto the “let's look at it later board,” which was disappointing, but he had to admit that the main board would describe Kurt pretty well. Then they did the same thing for Blaine, in case he was the key. The profilers had said that the killer probably wanted the survivor to suffer more than the person who was killed, but Blaine still could have been the factor in making the killer target them and make the killer follow Kurt.

Finn and Lauren took the lead on this, since they were the ones who actually knew him.

“Kurt called him an alpha gay.”

“Anger issues.”

“He could sing, too.”

Finn noticed that Noah looked interested when he mentioned “short” and “old fashioned clothes, sometimes kinda nerdy,” and kind of disgusted when Lauren added “sexy” and “charismatic.” Huh, maybe he wasn't so crazy after all for being jealous of Blaine, if he could make somebody as cool as Noah jealous.

It made him feel a bit weird to be talking about Kurt like this, officially on a whiteboard. He'd talked about him at work before, of course, but this felt different. Kinda weird and in a way kinda good, because it meant that they were planning to do something.

The chief looked at the results and said, “Let's get the profiler.” Dr. Keel answered the phone right away and she described the situation. “Any advice?”

“Going with our assumption that he's a narcissist, it suggests that something about Mr. Hummel threatens his self-perception. If he were driven, as we had first thought, solely by the sense of resentment towards happy couples or the concept of love itself, and the desire to be essentially more powerful than love, he would have targeted Ms. Conrad as well.

“Now, Mr. Hummel most likely represents something that threatens the murderer's self-concept. It's also possible that Mr. Hummel's recovery has been much healthier than that of the other victims, so the murderer needs to put him back in his place, so to speak.” He sighed heavily. “Or it's entirely possible that he picked Mr. Hummel at random, Mr. Hummel's sexual orientation is more of a trigger than we originally believed, or he developed a personal dislike for Mr. Hummel for some unrelated reason.”

The chief made a face. “We try not to think of that possibility, since what we've got is already so slim.”

“In any case, I recommend that you continue as before. Keep watching for anybody watching Mr. Hummel and keep a very close eye on Mr. Puckerman as well. If the murderer feels more of a personal vendetta towards Mr. Hummel, Mr. Puckerman would be the ideal target.”

Finn felt like the room had gotten a lot scarier around them, like the effect in a horror movie when you hear the loud minor chords playing either really high or really low. The profiler was right; if somebody wanted to break Kurt for good, the one best thing he could do is kill Puck. Or... “What about Burt and Mom? Are his dad and stepmom in danger, do you think?” There was a long pause and Finn wondered if the profiler was just trying to think of the best way to tell him.

“Well, I don't want to say that it couldn't happen, because there's always a possibility, but it would be a break from the murderer's usual pattern. He's only targeted couples in the past and that indicates that there's something about happy couples that he wants to destroy. I also think that if he considers himself to be greatly superior to his victims, to strike at a family member would be a sign of desperation as long as Mr. Hummel has a boyfriend. Of all those close to him, Mr. Puckerman is in the most danger.”

“What about my little sister? She lives with me.” Noah demanded. He looked scared and angry and Finn didn't blame him for a minute.

“The murderer probably wouldn't think of her as a direct target, but he might well consider using her to get at you. I would keep a very close eye on her as well and watch for anybody watching her.”

“Thank you very much. That's helpful.”

Dr. Keel sighed again. “I certainly hope so. The best of luck to you all.”

Noah was still looking down, scowling, when his phone rang with “Over the Rainbow.” He grabbed it from his pocket and stared at the screen, then drew a long breath. Finn hoped it was relief since it took a moment before he was able to talk. “It's Sarah's soccer coach. There was somebody in a car watching them play. He drove off when the coach came over. The coach got the license plate and he'll call it in.”

They went to the main phone desk. “There's a license check call coming in. Top priority. Ask him to come in.”

Finn was surprised to see Karofsky, of all people, come in, and then he remembered that Kurt had said something about running into him when he was out with Noah and that he'd come back to Lima to help his father out. 

Karofsky looked surprised when the chief introduced herself. “So...is there some kind of threat to the kids, like you think this guy is definitely a molester?” Finn actually kind of liked the way that Karofsky looked a little bit like he was squaring up to take somebody on, even if it didn't really make sense because the guy wasn't there.

“It's a possibility that he's a suspect in another crime.” Karofsky's eyes shifted back and forth from Noah to Finn as though he were trying to fill in the blanks.

“It's really important, man, that you remember everything you can,” he urged.

“Well, like I said at the front, he was driving a dark blue Prius. I dunno, but it almost looked like he was driving it new, you know, the way you do when you're still getting a feel for how it responds? Not a bad driver, just, well, new car.”

“What about the man himself?”

“The windows were tinted and he was wearing sunglasses, but I guess under 30, I just got that impression. White. He was kind of leaning back, but I'd say pretty tall but not a big guy, kind of a medium build, somewhere between medium and skinny.”

“Anything else?”

Karofsky hesitated and Puck leaned forward. “As long as you tell us that something's just an impression, it's fine to say it.”

Karofsky rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Maybe it's just because he had a sort of ordinary build, but something about him seemed kinda familiar. Not like he's somebody I know but like somebody who was in a class with you a couple of times or goes to the grocery store or the gym about the same time you do.” He looked uncertain. “I might be totally wrong about that, though, he could just look like somebody like that.”

Finn had gotten so hopeful when Karofsky started, but by the time he finished, he was more disappointed. How come Karofsky couldn't have said something like, “He had a scar on his face that looked just like this guy who lives at this address and talks trash about Kurt Hummel?” But then, they had the license plate to track.

Connie from the main desk poked her head in. “No go on the car. According to the records, it belongs to Harry Markstein, who's 86. His granddaughter reported it stolen this morning from in front of the house, when she brought him back after colorectal surgery.”

Finn wasn't sure what colo meant but he was sure about “rectal” and that sounded bad. The guy was 86, too.

Noah muttered, “Shouldn't have thought it would be that easy.” After a moment, though, he stopped staring at the floor and said, “It can't hurt to run the names of anybody living in the neighborhood or anybody who might have known that he was in the hospital, in case the guy took it because he know the owner wouldn't be using it.”

The chief nodded. “Thank you for coming in. If you remember anything, please call us immediately.” Finn could tell that Karofsky wasn't satisfied, the way he kept looking from the chief to him to Puck again, but he nodded, shook hands, and left.

She called Lauren back. “Take the list of people living near Markstein's house, cross reference it with anybody who's had a major life change in the last two years—marriage, divorce, breakups, moved into the area, anything. Cross that with any other lists we have from the original deaths. Cross that against white males under 35 with slim to medium builds. Get help from the Bureau.” She turned back to Finn and Puck and put a hand on Finn's arm. “Don't look so glum. This could be our breakthrough. Stealing the car was a mistake. Whether he's our killer or a perv, if he'd used his own car, he could have said just that he pulled over to check his phone, watched the kids for a moment because it brought back some memories or whatever, and then drove off because he realized what it would look like, and our witness is a scary-looking guy.” She smiled, just a little. “We may have him off balance now.”

Later that afternoon:

Lauren was doing some serious database work at her desk, glaring every time he asked her if there was anything. His phone rang.

“Hi, Burt, is-”

“A package came. For Kurt. I opened it, of course.” Burt's voice was so full of anger and disgust that Finn had to focus to make out the words. “A teddy bear with a bow tie. And its neck almost ripped off.”


	8. Chapter 8

Samira, the lab head, finally came to the door and let Finn in. She looked up at the glass door and muttered something under her breath about overgrown puppies, and Finn followed her gaze, wondering where the puppies were, until he noticed that he'd left nose prints. A lot of them, in fact. Well, if they'd stop bearing grudges about one tiny accident and let him into the lab without “a full-time babysitter,” it wouldn't have happened. He just wanted to see what was going on.

“Did you find anything?”

Noah turned around and nodded to him. Finn thought it was unfair that they let him in, but didn't want to waste time on that.

Samira answered, “A lot of fibers. We're separating out the ones from your dad's clothing and fully processing them, but there are at least ten different hairs, with roots.”

“So you can DNA them?”

She actually smiled at him. “Slow down, they might all be from wherever he bought the teddy bear, from shoppers, staff, even from where it was made, but there were two that were loose in the box. There were also fibers that are probably from clothing. Most of them were on the bear, but again, there were a few that were loose in the box. A few of those were, at least at first glance, from a long strand of high-grade cotton. It would be best if we can match any of them to what he was wearing in the Post Office security video, but if we can match it to any of his clothing, that would be a start.” In the video, the only person sending a box of that size and shape was wearing a raincoat and hat, which unfortunately didn't stand out on a rainy day, and used the automated postage machine, which meant nobody had spoken to him or looked at him.

Finn really didn't like seeing the Beanie Baby teddy bear, but he couldn't stop looking at it. Something was bothering him, and it wasn't just the cruelty of sending it to Kurt or the way that it was meant to mock Blaine's death. Something about it was bothering his brain. He closed his eyes to think harder about what it was and the sound of Burt's voice came back to him, saying “a bow tie.” That had to be it.

“Wait a minute. When, when he...was Blaine wearing a bow tie when he died?”

“I can run look it up. Why?” Noah was looking at him like he was expecting something really brilliant and Finn hoped he was going to deliver.

“Look, bow ties were kind of Blaine's thing, but sometimes he'd go a week or so without wearing one, he didn't want them to get stale or something like that. If he wasn't wearing one then, that might mean that the killer actually knew him. There's practically every kind of animal Beanie Baby, I know because Rachel loves them, and so if he picked the one with the bow tie, that's probably on purpose, right?”

Noah almost pushed him on the way out the door to his desk, and was muttering to himself because the computer was taking a long time, like it always does when you're in a hurry. Finn was leaning over his shoulder and Lauren appeared out of nowhere to look over his other shoulder. Finally, the list of evidence came up, listing every item of Blaine's clothing. No bow tie.

“Hot damn,” Noah breathed. “Hudson, you're golden.” He turned to Lauren. “Hey, Laur' can you narrow your list down to people who might have known Blaine personally, or at least been around Lima or Westerville long enough to stalk him pretty well?”

She came back four hours later with a two-page list, with about half the names highlighted. Those were the ones that Blaine's parents identified as having known him, lived within a 20-mile radius, or that had some kind of connection with McKinley, Dalton, or Blaine's extracurriculars during the applicable years.

Finn, the chief, and Lauren pored over the list. They'd probably have to look into all of them, but they still had the advantage of knowing some of the names. “No, he broke his leg just a few weeks ago, he wouldn't be able to walk normally, no, not him, he's too short, he must have lied about his height on his driver's license, no, he's the right height and weight on paper but he's got a beer belly, no, he's left-handed, or at least he pitches left-handed, put him as a maybe, no, he's out of town.” They continued with the second page, and Finn pointed at a name. “Sebastian's on the list?”

“Who's he?” Lauren asked, just as the chief said, “Is that the former state's attorney's family?”

Finn shook his head. “His son, but naah, he's all reformed. He used to really pick on Kurt and wanted to get into Blaine's pants, but after the slushy and Blaine's eye and Karofsky, he decided to be nice to people. He even got rid of the photo of me in red shoes that he was going to blackmail Rachel with.”

“You're babbling, Hudson.” Lauren smacked him on the arm. “To me, that sounds like a lead. Grudge against both of them, more against Kurt, came back from Paris to here, probably mad about that, ready to pick up where he left off. What's his sex life like?”

Finn yelped, “How would I know?” before realizing what she meant. “Kurt used to call him a floozy and Santana said he's a man-whore. She wanted to tattoo it on his butt. I think he kind of slept around.”

“And you said he tried to blackmail Rachel with a photo of you in red shoes?” Lauren sighed. “I should know better than to ask, but why would a picture of you in red shoes be blackmail?”

“Oh, I was kinda naked. I mean, fake naked. And the red shoes were girl shoes. It was a fake photo and he was going to post it online.”

The chief tapped her finger against the desk top. “So he used an indirect method to get to her, instead of using a faked photo of her. That kind of oblique psychological warfare sounds like it could be a match.”

“Yeah, but after Karofsky tried to kill himself, he said he realized his actions have consequences.”

“So he tried to drive somebody to suicide and it nearly worked?”

“Well, no, Karofsky said that he'd asked Sebastian how to come out of the closet and Sebastian essentially told him he was too fat and weird and should stay in the closet. Then when he did get outed, he tried to kill himself.”

Noah was looking down with his thinking expression. “What if he decided that he liked that kind of power? Sounds like he's the kind of guy who enjoys playing people. I met him once, with Kurt, and I just kind of got that impression, that he's somebody who likes to be in control, likes getting a reaction.”

Now Finn was thinking. “Well, he did manage to turn the Warblers against Blaine...Kurt did say that before Sebastian came along, they were uptight but never mean. But maybe if they heard about Karofsky or he even kind of bragged about it, they might have figured he'd gone too far...so then he'd have to pretend to change, to keep control of them.”

The chief interrupted, “This is all speculation. It's certainly not enough to go interview him, not until we've got something from the lab and can say we're doing routine elimination. If he's our killer, it's got to be tighter than skin tight. And we keep looking.”

“Well, if we're looking for people with a history with Kurt and Blaine, there's Dave Karofsky,” Noah said, pointing at another name. “He and Kurt had a lot of emotional history. And he might have held a grudge against Kurt for rejecting him. He could have lied about the car he saw, to jerk me around, since I'm seeing Kurt now and he just found that out.”

“I dunno...Kurt gave him a lot of support after he tried to kill himself, and I think Dave kind of put him on a pedestal for a while.” Finn just wasn't sure about that. Sure, Dave hid that he was gay for a long time and lied way too easily about threatening Kurt, just before he transferred, but Dave seemed too direct for something like this. The guy who planned something like this would have threatened Kurt with hurting his dad or something like that. “Besides, Kurt would have recognized Karofsky's build. He's a big guy and none of the victims said anything other than medium height and athletic build.”

“Put somebody on a pedestal and they can fall off,” Lauren pointed out. “And his parents did break up over his being gay, his mom wanted to send him to one of those deprogramming camps and his dad refused. And didn't he get outed because somebody saw him asking Kurt out? That'd maybe fit with the targeting couples. What if Karofsky was working with somebody?”

“Let's ask Dr. Keel if a past suicide attempt or a partnership would fit the profile,” the chief said. “Who else?”

They finished by eliminating a few more people from that page and then Lauren said, “I'll check if any of these got checked out during the first murders. And see if there's anything else online. It'll be a few hours, but by then the lab should be done.”

At the station, they discussed what to tell Kurt and reluctantly agreed to say as little as possible. If Sebastian approached Kurt to see the effect of his campaign up close, it was best that Kurt not be aware that he was a suspect. As for Sarah's safety, Lauren suggested that Puck and his sister stay with her. Puck could tell her that the power in their apartment was scheduled for a turn-off that night to fix some wiring in the building. He'd say that it was the kind of thing that presented absolutely no danger, but regulations insisted that old wiring be removed immediately. Sarah wouldn't be suspicious, though she might be surprised at a landlord adhering to regulations rather than giving the building inspector a special payment to forget the whole thing.

Finn would spend the night again with his family. He was more worried than he wanted to admit about all of them. The strain wasn't doing Burt's heart any good and Kurt was starting to get that weird expression around his eyes again, that dead-tired look. His mom looked so helpless every time she looked at either of them that it kind of made him feel better, even braver, knowing that he might be the one to get that look out of her eyes. The problem was it also made him feel worse because his mom looking helpless meant things were really, really bad.

The lab results had come in and so did the report from the call to the manufacturer. The Beanie Baby had been sold from a busy toy store just outside Lima, according to the SKU tracking. The store had looked up the transaction but it had been paid in cash. The cashier at that line didn't remember selling it but they'd bring over pictures to see if she could identify any of the potential suspects, mixed up with random photos to avoid false positives. As for the toy and the packaging, they'd isolated any number of fibers. Most were so common they were virtually untraceable but there were a few distinctive ones, including three tiny tufts of cashmere fluff, so small they'd be almost invisible to the naked eye.

Finn was sure it wasn't enough. Even if it came from clothing that Sebastian owned and they could prove he owned, a lawyer could explain it away. Sebastian was just walking through the store and brushed against it, somebody else wearing the same kind of sweater or coat touched it, and anyway, he knew that a jury wouldn't like a case that hinged on just three microscopic pieces of fluff.

Lauren punched him in the arm as she walked by. “It's not much, but it's something. There's bad news about the postcard though. Remember how the lab said it was printed, not written? The printer was at a big photography store near Columbus. I was hoping it was somebody's own printer that we could trace. They're gonna ask there, too, if anybody recognizes Smythe.”

“Why would he do it on a printer like that, where somebody might see him?”

Usually she rolled her eyes or called him dumbass or something when she explained things, but this time she just said, “Printers leave invisible watermarks so any document they print can be traced back to them. He must have known that, maybe even from law school. Hey, if somebody remembers him there, plus the fiber traces, that's something, right? And Forensics can go back to all the other cases, now that we've got an actual suspect to try to trace things to.” She paused. “We are gonna nail him, Hudson, right to the wall.”

Finn nodded. The news kind of made him feel better, but not enough. It would be even worse if it were one of those cases where they knew who did it but couldn't prove a thing. Well, better in a way since it meant that they'd be able to watch him and catch him if he tried again, but worse that Sebastian was smart and they couldn't watch too closely. All he had to do was complain to his dad and they'd be the ones in trouble.

“So we've just got to hope that he made a mistake?” Noah demanded.

“Or make him make a mistake,” the chief answered. “He's not the kind who flusters easily, I'm betting, but once he does, he can't pick up again very easily. And he likes to boast and show off, you said. So here's the plan.”

\-------

Lauren called Sebastian in for an interview first thing in the morning. She kept her voice dull and flat and when he asked, laughingly, if he should bring a lawyer, she said, “The decision about your legal representation is up to you.”

However, when he arrived, without a lawyer, Finn and Puck greeted him warmly. Finn had to remind himself to keep acting every few minutes and to pile on the flatter. He explained that as a law student and a natural leader, Sebastian had to be good with observing human nature. Because hSebastian had known Blaine well and gotten to know Kurt, he might have insights into the case.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “It's rather a cold case, isn't it?”

“Not necessarily.” Finn leaned forward eagerly. “We have some very solid evidence linking the killer to Dalton Academy.” Sebastian looked properly startled but didn't show any other sign other than continued polite attention. “Since you know Dalton and the law and Kurt and Blaine, we thought you'd be able to help us understand the Dalton link.”

Sebastian looked from Finn to Puck and back again. “But you have to remember that Blaine was only one of the victims. That alone doesn't lead back to Dalton.” He looked mildly concerned, but Finn knew that could mean either that they had gotten to Sebastian or that he was pretending to be concerned for the sake of the investigation.

Puck leaned forward. “Kurt's been getting some weird messages lately in the mail. Me, I think they're a copycat, but Finn here thinks they might be the real thing.” Finn pouted slightly as though this were an argument he and Puck often had.

“So anyway,” Finn almost interrupted, talking too quickly after Noah finished, “Why would somebody target Blaine and Kurt, do you think? Sure, I mean, they were cute together, but that can't be all,” he finished, indignantly.

“Maybe that was why.” Sebastian leaned back. “The murderer probably chose them at random. I hate to say this about your brother or about the dead, but there was nothing that very distinctive about them. The murderer is in the mood, sees them, they're an easy target somehow, and that's that.”

“You're probably right,” Finn frowned, resenting Sebastian's ever-growing air of patient smugness and his dismissal of both Kurt and Blaine. “But since we have the perfect evidence to link the killer to Dalton, tell us about Dalton. How might a murderer have stood out there?”

He could see the wheels turning in Sebastian's brain as he considered various responses. “A loner, perhaps. Somebody without charisma or any kind of sexual appeal, I'd imagine. Possibly overweight or with bad skin, somebody doomed to be background to others. That would be the kind of person. There were a few in every class, I'd look at them.” 

Finn decided to dig deeper. “Did you have anybody in mind? You looked as though you were thinking about somebody in particular.”

“Well...” Sebastian appeared to consider and then smiled a quick, charming grin. “Of course, if you ever say that I mentioned his name, my father will have your entire department destroyed, but I do remember a student named Trent, Trent something, who was always jealous of Blaine and who had some hormone problem or another, he was this pudgy mess of a nonentity.” He waved his hand dismissively. He pushed his chair back ever so slightly, as if to indicate that the interview was over.

Puck straightened up. “Not somebody the opposite? Maybe somebody who has the charisma and sexual appeal, the good looks, maybe even success, but who saw that those couples all had more? This was the way that he could feel more powerful than them, literally hold the power of life and death, decide which of them would live and which of them would die and how?” Puck did inscrutable better than Finn, Finn had to admit. “He's much more likely to be somebody who is incapable of holding anybody's attention long enough to form lasting relationships.”

Sebastian's eyes narrowed and his mouth soured for just a moment, but he recovered immediately. “I doubt it,” he said, condescendingly. “I'd definitely focus on finding some kind of loser. Maybe somebody who had promise in high school but never fulfilled it, maybe had to stay in Ohio, never went to a good college, never made anything much of himself.” He slowed his speech as he finished the last and frowned for a moment, hesitated, and then looked them both firmly in the eye. “I'd talk to the guidance counselors, they might remember something.”

Finn stood up. “This was a big help, Sebastian, thanks so much for your time.” Puck had gotten up as well and said, heartily, “I'm sure Kurt would say hello.”

Sebastian's expression changed to polite interest. “How is he doing? I'm sure those messages that he got pushed him back quite a bit.”

Puck chuckled. “Not as much as you'd think. It took him a while, but now he's seeing the killer as a pathetic figure, somebody who needs attention and was trying to get it. Sure, they were unpleasant, but now that he's over his grief for Blaine, he's not going to let some sad little loser get to him.” He shrugged. “You know, you get dogshit on your shoe, it's gross, you wipe it off, done.”

Finn was positive that Sebastian looked displeased before he recovered himself and said, “For his sake, I hope you're right.”

After he left, Lauren and the chief came in, both excited. “We've got a tentative ID from the printer. The cashier remembers him because he dropped something and she checked out the view from both sides,” Lauren announced.

“With the ID from the printer and the fibers, that's enough for a search warrant. The FBI contacts are coming in from the Columbus office and they've got all of the forensics that didn't match anything before. We'll send them right over.”

“So we go now?” Finn felt just as fidgety and eager to move as if Sebastian were on the run.

“You aren't going.”

“The hell? This is my brother we're talking about!”

“Precisely,” she answered, firmly. “Both of you are personally connected to the case. Do you want to have the judge throw out evidence because a victim's brother and boyfriend were involved in the search?”

Finn looked to Puck for support and saw his own rage and disbelief reflected there, but after a moment, Puck's angry pose subsided. “I guess,” Puck muttered. “I guess you're right.”

Her expression softened. “I'm sorry, guys. I know how much this means to you and I'd love to give the two of you a chance at this, but it's not worth the risk.”


	9. Chapter 9

After the others left, Finn and Puck silently agreed to stay at the station and wait. Lauren promised to text them if anything happened. Puck called Sarah on her sleepover with a friend in their apartment building, to make sure that everything was going okay. He'd earlier pointed out proudly that she insisted that she didn't need it and admitted that he did it just for his own peace of mind. Finn was impressed that he managed to sound pretty normal during the call, though Sarah must have asked something since he said, just a bit too casually, that it was pretty quiet at the station. When almost an hour had passed, Puck shoved his chair away from his desk. “Workout room?” Finn got up and followed him.

The workout room barely earned the name, a dimly-lit corner of the basement with a weights bench, some free weights on the floor, and a treadmill that got wheezy much over five miles per hour. When he really felt like working out, Finn went to the high school after hours with Shannon. He felt sluggish with waiting rather than the need for physical exertion, but he understood how Noah was feeling and spotted him silently, not even saying a word when Puck kept asking for another ten pounds, even though he could tell his partner was over-exerting and would pay for it with painful arms and chest the next day. He knew that it felt good to be fighting something, fighting something where you could get closer and closer and a setback was only temporary. You could feel the effort pay off when the weights lift and you know that it's done. It doesn't wriggle around or get a good lawyer or stay there unproven. He wouldn't have stopped Puck from getting that satisfaction, no matter how red his face got or how much his neck bulged, unless he were going to hurt himself seriously then and there.

Their phones buzzed simultaneously and they immediately racked the weights. “FBI has phone records. SS phone turned off each night except for one. He was in the area.”

Finn stared at his phone. He'd somehow expected the evidence to start falling apart and leaving them nowhere again. “Still not enough,” he said out loud, even though he was mostly talking to himself.

Ten minutes later. “He's looking sour. Doesn't realize that I can see his reflection. He just looks bored when he sees people looking at him.”

Twenty minutes later. “Found a safe in a hidden recess in bedroom closet. Says he doesn't know about it. Asked for lawyer because it must be his father's for business. Said a lot about father atty genl.”

Five minutes. “Daddy says he doesn't know about it. Probably there when they bought. WRONG. Model one year old.”

Two minutes. “Feebs opened it. SS sweating.”

Almost immediately after. “Platinum chain. Antique money clip. Pocket watch. Monogram BDA.”

“Arrested. Daddy flying in from conference in Chicago. Milnes calling you in a sec.”

The phone rang on Finn's desk and he watched his arm reach for it as though it were going about its own business. “Officer Hudson,” he answered, slowly, as though it were a translation from a foreign and unfamiliar language.

“Officer, if Officer Puckerman is available, please put me on speakerphone.” Her voice was formal and Finn could tell she was keeping everything by the book.

“Sebastian Smythe is under arrest for six counts of first-degree murder. He's exercising his right to remain silent until his attorney arrives. Ms. Zizes and I will remain on the scene until the FBI finishes processing the evidence. You and Officer Puckerman are off duty until tomorrow at noon or until I call you in for duty, whichever is sooner.” Her voice softened for an instant. “Go home now, both of you.”

Finn looked over at Puck and saw disbelief and worry slowly transition into satisfaction and relief, just like those morphing faces on YouTube videos or in movie special effects. It made the whole thing real for him, too, and he and Puck grabbed one another in a long hug.

 

He could see a light on in Burt and Carole's room, but the rest of the house that he could see from the front was dark. He left himself and Puck in and called upstairs, “It's me!” before they could be alarmed at the sound of somebody entering. They came upstairs, almost running, and either Kurt was awake or the sound woke him up, because he came to his bedroom door, looking sleeping in his sweats. 

“The FBI just arrested Sebastian Smythe.”

“For what?” Kurt looked confused and it reminded Finn how much he and Puck had kept secret.

“The murders. There's evidence. They even found...I think it was Blaine's pocket watch.”

Kurt went grey-white and he leaned against the doorway. “Sebastian...” Finn was usually good at reading his brother's expressions and voice, but he had no idea this time. Burt put his hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right, kiddo?” Kurt nodded, almost absently, staring ahead, and then suddenly retched and ran for the bathroom. 

He didn't shut the door behind him and so Finn followed, not too closely, with the others on his heels. Kurt hadn't quite made it and there was a small trail of vomit leading to the toilet, where Kurt was kneeling, still vomiting. Burt pushed through and crouched near him, supporting himself with one hand on the edge of the sink, rubbing Kurt's back with another. Kurt raised his head to look at them, his eyes and cheeks wet, but started gagging again and lowered his face , although by now he was only producing dry heaves.

Finn saw Puck reaching past him for the paper towels and ripping of pieces to wipe up the mess on the floor. After another few moments, Kurt again looked up, and this time he was able to get to his feet without another bout of nausea. Burt got up a moment later, wincing involuntarily and putting a hand on his knee as it made a loud crack. 

Kurt poured himself some water, rinsed his mouth, and then looked around at them. “Did he...did he say **why**?” Finn really hated the way that Kurt's voice rose to almost a scream with the last word, it sounded too much like an injured animal's shriek.

“He didn't say anything, just lawyered up.” Puck shook his head.

Kurt looked Finn and then Puck right in the eye. “You think he did it?”

Puck nodded. “One hundred percent. They found evidence at his place.”

“Like what?” Kurt almost sounded like he was challenging them. Finn kind of got it, his little brother usually went on the offensive when he was shaken, and he'd want to be positive, too, before he finally let his guard down.

“A watch that they think was Blaine's.”

“He didn't wear a watch. Just a pocket watch with his monogram.” Kurt swallowed hard. “He got me monogrammed towels as a graduation present and had them use the same script style.”

_Not tactful, bro,_ Finn thought when he saw Puck's mouth twitch a little at Kurt's tone, but then this had to be bringing a lot back for Kurt. But he just answered, “It was a pocket watch.” 

“What else?”

Puck went on. “Some tiny fabric traces. An eyewitness put him at the place where that postcard was printed. His phone GPS was off every night of the murders except one, and that one night put him near the spot.”

“It sounds...it sounds like it was him. I didn't, I...” Kurt started to shake all over. 

Carole grabbed his hands and squeezed them hard. “Kurt! Kurt!” she shouted, while Burt pushed his hands under the faucet and ran the cold water over them. Kurt's eyes stayed wild and unfocused for what seemed like forever until he stopped shivering and drew a deep, labored breath. Puck put his arms around Kurt as Burt muttered, “I'll get your pills, kiddo.” Finn was relieved to see Kurt settle slightly against Puck while he was visibly trying to bring himself back. His partner still looked spooked and his eyes were traveling the room as though he were trying to find something or think of something. Suddenly, Puck began singing, “Dreaming, I must be dreaming” and continued the song until Kurt turned around to face him , humming and then joining on the refrain, “And oh, I just fall in love again, just one touch and then it happens every time.” Burt was back with the pills just a second or two later and Finn almost would have laughed at Burt's resigned expression as he realized that Kurt probably needed to finish the song before taking the pills. 

He couldn't help yawning uncontrollably and must have looked as tired as he felt because Carole insisted that he was in no condition to drive and suggested that he spend the night. She offered the couch to Puck who said he wanted to go back to his apartment since there was no telling what time Sarah might come home. After Puck had hugged everyone, Finn walked him downstairs. At the door, he hugged Puck again, who took him by the shoulders, looked him in the eyes, and said, “If you tell anybody I even know a Carpenters song, I will end you.”

The FBI was able to make the arrest stick and Sebastian was denied bail. Finn wondered why he'd ever wanted to be famous, since it just meant being chased around by reporters. He kept saying that he couldn't comment but they just kept chasing him and his family. Lauren finally came up with an idea and called somebody she said owed her one. A few hours later, a guy came by in a pickup truck, covered with signs that said “Earth Friendly Lawn Care” with a big goat in the back. Without saying a word to any of the reporters, he put pegs at the corner of the lawn and then let the goat out to graze. It kept between the pegs and the reporters all backed off. When Finn got downwind of the goat, he realized why. It stunk like nothing he'd ever smelled before. Kurt's face when he smelled the goat himself was a classic and Finn really wished he had a camera, that and when the goat guy complimented him on his outfit and said something that Finn couldn't understand but apparently Kurt could, about something called dupioni, which apparently had nothing to do with ponies, no matter what it sounded like.

The meetings with the prosecuting attorney went well. Fortunately, Sebastian's lawyers weren't going to try to fight the evidence, but were trying a defense based on the idea that Sebastian had a documented severe head injury from a childhood fall and following head injuries from lacrosse and was in an altered state of mind when he committed the murders. Midway through one session, Finn asked the prosecuting attorney if he believed it. The guy frowned as though he were thinking about it for the first time. He must have seen the question on Finn's face about that because he answered, “It doesn't really matter if I do or not. It's the only logical defense. True insanity pleas almost never succeed without a documented history of mental illness, since the legal definition of insanity is actually quite narrow. But it sounds like they've got brain scans that show abnormalities. Does it matter?”

Kurt answered then. “It does to me.” Finn hadn't realized just how much the uncertainty had weighed on Kurt, but then, neither had Kurt himself. No matter how horrifying it was to think that it was somebody who had known them personally, it meant that Kurt could stop, even just in the back of his mind, wondering and even waiting for some move from the killer. He'd explained to Finn why he wanted mental illness to explain it all. It would mean that he never had to wonder if he should have seen it coming, if it was something personal about him that could trigger so much hatred. His brother's mouth had that bitter twist it sometimes had when he said, “I'm used to unreasoning hate because I'm gay. I really don't like the idea that somebody could hate me, well, me and Blaine that much for an actual other reason.”

The attorney went on. “I heard the rumor that they're going to waive the right to a jury.”

“What does that mean?”

“My most cynical guess is that they think that Julian Smythe can influence a judge in a way he can't influence a jury. I'm sure the message is that they can avoid wasting time and money on both sides if the judge agrees to psychiatric hospitalization rather than appeal after appeal after appeal, the cost of expert witnesses, and so on. Judges are also subject to re-election and while Smythe lost a lot of power with this, he still has powerful friends.”

“Isn't that, like, corruption?”Finn demanded. 

“Well, yes, but it's also possibly quite true. In either case, Sebastian won't be on the streets for a long time.” Finn leaned back. He knew from being a cop that things don't always work out exactly by the books. But as long as his brother had some kind of justice, and everybody else was safe, that was what mattered.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, everybody, so much, and sorry to keep you waiting! I can't tell you how many drafts I started and discarded, but I think this one works. Thanks again for reading.

The trial got fast-tracked and the plea of temporary mental incapacity worked. Some commentators said that it was a step forward in applying medical science to matters of criminal culpability, others said that it was a step away from personal responsibility, others said that it was a case of justice for the rich, yet others said that while there were probably backroom deals, the state still won. Puck was just glad that it was over.

It wasn't a celebration dinner, but he, Kurt, and Finn were tremendously relieved that it was over and it made going out a tiny celebration of being able to put the trial behind them. This time, nothing had interrupted Mercedes Jones' visit to Lima.

Her other motive for coming was quite clear. She drew him aside two minutes after meeting him and said, “Kurt thinks that you hang the moon. Now I know you _are_ going to treat him right.” She looked at him grimly for a moment, just to emphasize the point, and then led the way back to the table. Kurt looked just a bit amused, as if he knew what was going on.

Puck also knew exactly what Kurt had planned and Kurt was even less subtle. He'd actually drawn pictures as he explained his plan to Puck when they sat on his couch after a long makeout session. Puck wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do, but he just nodded along.

During dinner, Kurt kept saying things like what a coincidence it was that neither Finn nor Mercedes had found the right person yet, and that it was funny, in all of the couples that their old glee club had formed, neither Finn nor Mercedes had gotten together, and did it mean that maybe it was an idea before it's time then?

Finn seemed more or less clueless, which didn't really surprise Puck, and Mercedes kept looking at Kurt and shaking her head in amusement, but Puck noticed that she didn't try to change the subject. After dinner, Kurt commented that karaoke at the new coffeeshop would be fun, and Puck remembered that Kurt had ordered him to agree. He had no choice and besides, it would be fun.

At the new coffee shop, Kurt went to sign up and came back to the table saying that he had “accidentally' signed for a duet from Miss Saigon, and couldn't Finn and Mercedes do it? By that time, even Finn seemed to realize what was going on, but grinned happily and offered Mercedes his hand as they got up. Kurt stopped trying to look innocent and turned to Puck, settling happily into his side.

“I think my plan is working,” he announced.

“At least you didn't call it your subtle plan, baby.”

“I know, maybe I was overdoing it a little, but...I want them both to be happy. Like we are.” He looked seriously into Puck's eyes and Puck melted all over again. “It hasn't been easy, and even now, we've still got some issues, but, well, I love you, and we're together, and we're headed the right direction.”

Puck squeezed him closer and then turned to kiss him. Kurt's mouth met his, eagerly, and so he actually missed the rest of the duet, or the way that Finn's peck on Mercedes' cheek met the corner of her mouth instead, and neither of them seemed to mind a bit.


End file.
